“Greed, for lack of a better word, is good.”
— Gordon Gekko, Wall Street (1987)
Purpose
A year-long portfolio management competition designed to test:
- ETF selection
- Income generation
- Portfolio construction
- Capital allocation
- Risk management
- Conviction
Participants manage a hypothetical portfolio in full public view.
🏆 One Champion. One Belt. One Year to Earn It.
Starting Capital
- $250,000 hypothetical portfolio
- No margin, no leverage
- One-year competition
- Public leaderboard
Schedule
- Target field: 10 participants, plus the Ask DV bot fielding its own portfolio —
11 entries in total
- Inaugural draft: tentatively July 5, 2026
- Final standings: struck at the official closing prices of July 2, 2027 (the final
trading day before the Independence Day weekend)
- Reallocation Days occur once per month on dates announced before the season begins;
all live events are simulcast
Draft Format
- Snake draft; draft order determined randomly
- Each participant drafts exactly 10 funds
- Exactly 10 funds must be held at all times
- Once drafted, a fund cannot be owned by another participant
- No duplicate holdings across portfolios
- Pick clock: 90 seconds per selection plus a 10-second grace period; a missed pick is
deferred to the end of the draft
- Allocations are set live during the draft; leftover cash is permitted. Initial
purchases execute shortly after the market open (approximately 9:40–10:00 AM ET)
of the first trading day following the draft.
Eligible Investments
Must:
- ✅ Trade on a public exchange
- ✅ Have paid a dividend, distribution, coupon, or interest payment within the
previous 12 months
- ✅ Pay distributions at least quarterly
- ✅ Generate shareholder income
Examples: covered call ETFs, bond ETFs, Treasury ETFs, preferred ETFs, REIT ETFs,
dividend ETFs, income-oriented commodity products.
At least quarterly means bi-monthly, semi-annual, and annual payers
are not eligible.
Ongoing eligibility: if an owned fund fails to make a required
distribution for two consecutive quarters — or six consecutive months for monthly or
weekly payers — it becomes ineligible and must be replaced on the next Reallocation Day.
A $0.00 distribution counts as a non-payment. Once ineligible, a fund cannot be drafted
again.
Not Eligible
- ❌ Individual stocks
- ❌ Closed-end funds (CEFs)
- ❌ Mutual funds
- ❌ Options
- ❌ Futures
- ❌ Private investments
- ❌ Non-income-producing funds
Portfolio Construction
- Exactly 10 funds required
- Minimum position size: $5,000 — applies only when capital is allocated. Market
movement may carry a position below $5,000 with no action required, but a newly
acquired or replaced fund must be funded to at least $5,000 from cash or another
holding.
- Maximum position size: $35,000 — applies to initial allocations and any subsequent
purchases on a Reallocation Day. If appreciation, reinvested distributions, or market
movement push a position above $35,000, that is permitted and no trimming is
required.
- Fractional shares are permitted
- Remaining capital may be held as cash
Cash Rule
- Cash earns 0% and receives no yield credit
- Cash counts toward portfolio value
- Cash may only be deployed on a Reallocation Day
Holding cash is considered an active portfolio management decision.
Distribution Policy
Participants must disclose whether distributions will be:
- DRIP’d back into the paying fund
- Directed into another existing portfolio holding
- Held as cash
Reinvestment is automatic on the distribution pay date. DRIP’d and directed
reinvestments execute at the receiving fund’s morning market price
(~10:00 AM ET) on that pay date — the same reinvestment pricing used by
DV portfolio DRIP — falling back to the pay-date closing price when no
morning print is available.
Distribution elections may be changed on a Reallocation Day.
Reallocation Day (Rebalance)
Rebalances occur once per month on a predetermined Reallocation Day, conducted live and
simulcast for transparency, discussion, and participant interaction. All transactions
execute at that trading day’s official closing prices.
Each Reallocation Day follows this sequence:
- Participants declare all funds being dropped
- Released funds enter the Free Agent Pool
- Newly eligible funds enter the Free Agent Pool
- The Free Agent Draft runs in order of portfolio value — the smallest account picks
first, moving up to the highest — for as many rounds as needed until everyone completes
their transactions
- Participants declare allocations
- Participants update distribution elections
- Portfolios lock until the next Reallocation Day
Free Agent Draft pick clock: 90 seconds per selection plus a 10-second
grace period. A participant who still hasn’t picked is skipped and moves to the end
of the current queue; multiple missed picks are re-queued in the order they were
missed.
New Funds
ETFs launched during the competition may be added. They become eligible on the next
Reallocation Day, enter the available player pool, and are acquired through the Free
Agent Draft.
Corporate Actions
The goal is to mirror real-world portfolio management whenever possible.
- Ticker change: no action required
- Merger: the successor fund automatically replaces the holding
- Liquidation: proceeds move to cash and remain there until the next
Reallocation Day
- Material strategy change: retain the fund or replace it on the next
Reallocation Day
Forced replacements are not allowed outside a Reallocation Day.
Participant Changes
If a participant withdraws mid-season, the Commissioner may freeze and remove the
portfolio from competition, or appoint a replacement manager. If no replacement is found,
the holdings return to the Free Agent Pool on the next Reallocation Day.
Missing a Reallocation Day carries no penalty — the existing portfolio simply carries
forward unchanged until the next one.
Transparency
Everything is public: draft picks, holdings, allocations, cash balances,
distribution elections, monthly changes, and rankings.
Portfolios lock between rebalances. No retroactive trades. No
backdating. No hindsight.
Scoring
🏆 Winner = highest ending portfolio value
Portfolio value = market value of holdings + cash balance.
Tie-breaker — cumulative distributions. For championship awards, the
participant with higher cumulative distributions wins. For Free Agent Draft priority, the
participant with lower cumulative distributions picks first.
Taxes
Taxes are ignored for the purposes of the competition.
Side Awards
- 💰 Income King — highest cumulative distributions generated during
the competition (tracked separately from portfolio value; not double-counted)
- 📈 Best Fund Selection — the single highest total return (price
appreciation plus all distributions received) of any drafted fund. The fund must be
held at least 180 consecutive days to qualify; a fund sold mid-season still qualifies
if it met the 180-day minimum.
- 🔥 Biggest Comeback — largest percentage increase in portfolio
value from a participant’s lowest point during the season through the
conclusion
- 🥊 Biggest Draft Steal — highest Draft Value Added (DVA = draft
position ranking − final fund ranking by total return). A fund drafted #65 of 80 that
finishes #5 scores +60. Free Agent acquisitions count as Round 11 selections.
- 👑 People’s Choice — public vote on the competition site, open
to anyone, up to 10 votes per person
Commissioner
The Competition Commissioner makes all final determinations on eligibility,
distributions, corporate actions, rule interpretations, scoring disputes, and any
unforeseen circumstances, and may consult independent data sources and platform
administrators as needed.
Q&A — Official Clarifications
- What if an owned fund suspends its distributions?
- Missing a required distribution for two consecutive quarters — or six consecutive
months for monthly or weekly payers — makes it ineligible. A $0.00 distribution counts
as a non-payment. It must be replaced on the next Reallocation Day and cannot be
drafted again.
- If appreciation pushes a position above $35,000, must it be trimmed?
- No. The $35,000 cap applies to purchases; appreciation, reinvested distributions, or
market movement above it is permitted with no trimming.
- What if a position falls below $5,000?
- The $5,000 minimum applies only when capital is allocated. Market movement may carry
a position below it with no action required. But a newly acquired or replaced fund must
be funded to at least $5,000 from cash or another holding.
- How many funds may I hold per asset class, and is there a limit per issuer?
- There is no limit on how many funds you draft from a single issuer. You may also hold
multiple funds built on the same underlying or asset class — gold, NVDA, and the
like — provided each fund uses a different income strategy, meaning a
distinct option overlay and/or use of leverage. For example, four funds all tied to
NVDA — YieldMax, Rex Shares, Granite YieldBoost, and Roundhill — may sit in
one portfolio together because each employs a different income strategy. Two funds on
the same underlying that use the same income strategy count as duplicates and may not
both be held.
Rules are a discussion draft and may be refined before the
season begins.
