The United States Investing Championship today reported the leaders for the first quarter of the 2021 competition, which involved 324 top traders from around the world. The United States Investing Championship is a real money verified competition which gives up-and-coming traders an opportunity to showcase their talent on the world stage. Prior top performers include Paul Tudor Jones and Louis Bacon. Participants specify an account number at the beginning of the year for tracking purposes. Brokerage statements associated with that account are used to verify performance claims. The competition began in 1983 and ran for fifteen years. It was restarted in 2019.

The leader in the $1,000,000+ stock division after three months is Mark Minervini, + 111.4%. Mr. Minervini is the author of two best-selling trading books, Trade Like a Stock Market Wizard and Think & Trade Like a Champion. He also finished first in the United States Investing Championship in 1997. In second, + 32.6%, is Vivek Subramanyam, from London. Mr. Subramanyam is founder and CEO of a technology focused investment bank, Technology Holdings. Mr. Subramanyam was born in India, studied business management there, and then spent a decade each in New York and London. In 2020, he finished first, + 60.6%, in the $1,000,000+ enhanced growth division, which allows futures and options. In third place in stocks, + 15.6%, is Vibja Jha. Miss Jha was the top performing female in the 2020 competition, finishing + 155.2% in stocks in the under $1,000,000 division over the full year.

The leader in the $1,000,000+ enhanced growth division, up a record-shattering 278.5% in just three months, is Ramy El-Batrawi, from Los Angeles. Mr. El-Batrawi has been trading for forty years. His performance is particularly impressive because he began the competition with an $8.3 million account. Mr. El-Batrawi, who is of Egyptian decent, was born in Switzerland. He traded multiple stocks and rarely lost on his trades, including shorting the Nasdaq 100 (by purchasing SQQQ), as well as trades of Twitter, Canaan Inc., Chewy, Inc., Cleveland-Cliffs, and Jinkosolar Hldg. Co. Ltd. In second place, +20.7%, is Arthur Smelyanski of Maccabi Capital Management.

Leading after three months in the under $1,000,000 stock division, is Dmitry Alexeivich, + 334%, another record-shattering performance. Mr. Alexeivich is originally from Ukraine. In second place, + 315.8%, is Tomas Claro. Mr. Claro was born in Chile. He worked for twelve years for a number of large Chilean institutions, including a five year stint as head of international trading. In 2017, he left Chile and moved to Chicago where he received an MBA from the University of Chicago. He is a full time trader. Mr. Claro finished second in 2020, + 497%. In third place, + 193%, is Ryan Pierpont, from Los Gatos, California. Mr. Pierpont graduated from Santa Clara University with a degree in business. He currently does financial planning for ServiceNow corporation. He finished third in the 2020 competition, + 448.4%. Other outstanding performers in the stock division include Wilfredo Villarreal Fernandez, + 188.3%; Daniel Reyes, + 164.2%; Trent McGraw, + 109.8%; Gertrudes Sotero, + 106.7%; and Garrett Cummings, + 106%.

Among participants in the enhanced growth division trading accounts of less than $1,000,000, the leader after three months is Steve Geng, + 110.2%. Mr. Geng grew up in North Caldwell, New Jersey and graduated from Rutgers in 1987 with a degree in Economics. He was a broker for ten years and now works in cyber security software sales. Second is Anton Ie, + 75.1%. Mr. Ie was born in Jakarta, Indonesia, and received a bachelor's degree in Finance and Management Information Systems from Iowa State University. He graduated in 2.4 years. He then went back to Indonesia, where he traded bonds for a major Indonesian bank. Third is Levan Seperteladze, + 74.2%. Mr. Seperteladze grew up in Tbilisi, Georgia, which was part of the former Soviet Union. He then moved to North Carolina, where he received a Bachelor’s degree in Business Administration, and a Master’s degree in International Management from High Point University. He has been trading since 2008.

Over the years, the United States Investing Championship has attracted legendary traders, including Paul Tudor Jones, Louis Bacon, Dr. Edward O. Thorpe, Mark Strome, Mark Minervini, David Ryan, Doug Kass, Sheen Kassouf, Marty Schwartz, Frankie Joe, Tom Basso, Cedd Moses, Gil Blake, Robert Prechter, Jr., and Bruno Combier.

The standings appear on the website financial-competitions.com, and are carried by various media outlets. Financial-competitions.com allows traders to enter the competition and provides copies of past articles about top performers which appeared in Barron’s, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, and other financial publications. Late entries are tracked from the date of their entry, so everyone starts with a gain of zero percent. The competition is run by Dr. Norman Zadeh, a former Stanford professor, former professional gambler, former publisher of the magazine Perfect 10, and son of Lotfi Zadeh, the creator of fuzzy logic.

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