Before selecting a stock, research the judges. Pitch a concentrated, Moti stock to value investors like Buffett, but an event-driven idea to merger-arb specialists. Aligning your idea with their worldview is more critical than the idea itself for winning a competition.
Avoid generic arguments like valuation multiples or analyst price targets. Your pitch must be built around a differentiated insight, whether from your unique professional background (e.g., a doctor on biotech) or a complex, misunderstood situation (e.g., a C-Corp to REIT spin-off).
Everything in life is selling, including investing. A stock pitch competition is not an academic exercise but an act of selling yourself and your idea. The goal is to tell a compelling story that persuades the audience, which differs from the process of making a personal investment.
Detailed walkthroughs of your DCF are boring and counterproductive in a pitch. They derail the narrative and expose you to criticism over minor assumptions or errors, destroying your credibility. State your price target, mention it's supported by a model in the appendix, and move on.
Judges view a sloppy presentation as a proxy for sloppy thinking. A typo, a misaligned slide, or a number that doesn't add up immediately erodes your credibility and takes the audience out of your story. Flawless execution is table stakes for maintaining trust in your analysis.
In a competition, a 15% upside target is boring and forgettable. To capture judges' attention, present a more aggressive but still justifiable price target. Frame what you might internally consider a "bullish" outcome as your base case to make the story more compelling and memorable.
While visiting a company's mine might not yield proprietary investment insights, it is highly effective in a pitch. Including photos or anecdotes from on-the-ground diligence shows effort and builds credibility with judges, making your narrative more believable and memorable.