'Vital Infrastructure' Thematic Portfolio for Swissquote Campus Challenge
We proudly presents our winning entry for the Swissquote Campus Challenge 2025. Tasked with designing a compelling “Themes Trading” certificate, we developed the “Vital Infrastructure” portfolio – a meticulously researched and quantitatively structured investment theme focused on essential, resilient sectors.
Team members:
The Challenge: Creating a Real-World Investment Product
The Swissquote Campus Challenge invited student teams to step into the shoes of portfolio managers. The goal: conceptualize, research, and structure a thematic investment certificate suitable for Swissquote’s platform and attractive to investors – potentially simplifying complex markets for novice investors while offering robust potential.
Our Approach: Blending Qualitative Insight with Quantitative Rigor
We identified “Vital Infrastructure” (Energy, Water, Waste Management, Logistics & Warehousing) as a theme with inherent stability and long-term growth potential, driven by indispensable services and global trends. Our methodology involved:
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Qualitative Stock Selection: We screened companies within these sectors based on:
- Long-term financial health and stability.
- Synergies with global trends (e.g., population growth, urbanization).
- Alignment with increasing digitization and efficiency demands.
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Quantitative Stock Weighting: Moving beyond simple equal weighting, we implemented a risk-parity inspired strategy based on inverse volatility.
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Rigorous Backtesting & Analysis: We thoroughly backtested the portfolio’s performance over the last 10 years against major benchmarks (S&P 500, DJI, SSMI), analyzing returns, volatility, drawdowns, Sharpe ratio, and market capture ratios using Jupyter Notebooks.
Monte Carlo Forecast:
Risk Return Profile (Sharpe Ratio):
Key Highlights & Performance:
- Resilient Thematic Focus: Taps into non-cyclical sectors essential for modern life.
- Disciplined Methodology: Combines fundamental sector understanding with a data-driven, quantitative weighting approach.
- Risk-Managed Construction: Inverse volatility weighting demonstrated lower portfolio volatility compared to benchmarks in backtests (e.g., lower 60-day rolling volatility 54.6% of the time vs. S&P 500).
- Strong Historical Outperformance: Backtesting showed significant outperformance against benchmarks with a superior risk-return profile (higher Sharpe Ratio).
- Favorable Asymmetry: The portfolio captured more upside in rising markets while mitigating losses in falling markets compared to the S&P 500 (Capture Ratio > 1).
Project Impact & Recognition:
Our team “ETHedge” was awarded 1st Place in the Swissquote Campus Challenge 2025, receiving a prize of CHF 5’000. This victory validates our “Vital Infrastructure” theme and the robustness of our analytical approach. Our proposal demonstrated a potentially viable and attractive investment product ready for consideration on the Swissquote platform and SIX Swiss Exchange, showcasing our ability to translate academic knowledge into practical, real-world financial solutions. We are incredibly proud of this achievement.
