How To Make $10,000 This Weekend

OK, it may take more than just the weekend, but you really could make $10,000.  The National Association of Active Investment Managers, or NAAIM, is looking for scholarly papers about active investment topics.  The winner will receive the coveted “Wagner Award,” $10,000 in cash and a free trip to Orlando to present the paper at NAAIM’s annual conference.  Second place gets $3,000 and third place $1,000.

Here is what they are looking for, according to the Call for Papers.

Paper Topics: The papers should cover an innovative topic in the area of active investing. This can be either a documented and justified investing approach or an exploration into the validity of active investing. Active investing topics can involve making investment decisions using technical analysis, quantitative analysis, etc. Papers can also address related topics such as position sizing techniques, money management approaches, scaling into and out of trades, exit strategies, etc.

Who may submit: The competition is open to all investment practitioners, academic faculty and doctoral candidates in the field.

In other words, they want to see academic-quality studies of trading systems, investment strategies, and related active management activities.  The key word here is active.  NAAIM is a professional association of people engaged in tactical asset allocation, market timing, sector rotation and other such techniques.  Passive strategies have their place, but NAAIM members are generally not interested in them.

The deadline for submissions is March 15, 2010.

Disclosure: I am a longtime member of NAAIM and also serve on its Board of Directors.