United States Investing Championship Nine-Month Results

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--The United States Investing Championship just announced the leaders for the first nine months of 2026. Out of 712 real-money competitors, only 85 are reporting profits; it has been an extremely difficult year. Prior top performers include Paul Tudor Jones, Mark Minervini, David Ryan and his son Sean Ryan, Mark Strome, and Dr. Edward O. Thorp.

There are four categories based on account size and risk.

Leading the $1,000,000+ stock division after nine months, with an 80% gain, is Abdulmajid M. Al Qurashi, from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. Mr. Al Qurashi is Deputy CEO of Abdul Samad Al Qurashi, a leading Middle East fragrance company. He also publishes a financial newsletter which is available at themizan.capital. Second, + 36.7% is George Tkaczuk. George is a portfolio manager at RCM Wealth Advisors in Chicago. He was + 86.3% in 2025 and + 97.7% in 2024. Third, + 21.5% is Justin Head, of Alavanca Trading, based in Sullivan, Missouri. Also reporting gains of 10% or more are Inverteum Capital + 17.3%, Kohei Yamada + 16.1%, and Eric Evans of Trajecta Investment Partners + 10%.

In the $1,000,000+ enhanced growth division, which allows trading in futures and options and thus carries greater risk, the leader after nine months, + 130.2%, is Vikash Raniga. Vikash was + 95.7% in the 2025 competition. He has an MBA from MIT and currently lives in Fremont, CA. Second, + 70.5% is Daniel Lee, from Singapore. Daniel is originally from Auckland, New Zealand. Third, + 60.4% is Tim Garner from Madison, Alabama. Tim is a former star quarterback and Ironman competitor. He was a NASA contractor in Huntsville, AL, for 35 years. Also reporting gains of 10% or more are MC Diau + 56.8%, Joshua Wat + 38.4%, Tong Wang + 32%, Ankur Shah + 25.8%, and Robert McTamaney + 20%.

Among participants trading between $20,000 and $1,000,000 in stocks or ETFs, the leader after nine months, with a 785.8% return, is Martin Luk, from Hong Kong. Mr. Luk finished first in the 2025 competition with a 969.8% return, and 6th in the 2024 competition with a 283.1% return. Second is Victor Mordekhai from Israel, with a 363% return. Mr. Mordekhai, an avid tennis player, was born in Moscow. Third, + 249.1% is M. Suk Capital. Other participants reporting gains of at least 40% are Jerry Yeung + 206.6%, Gowthaman Vijayan + 176.1%, Adam R. Graham + 145.7%, Elijah Majdalani + 132%, Jacob Engel, CFA + 123.5%, Tyler Lorenzen + 113.3%, Azo Cheng + 72.6%, Mario Fuchs + 68.7%, Venu Ganipisetti + 65.6%, Emmett Iheagwara + 64.2%, William Koslowski + 63.7%, Dr. Kaushal, MCh Neurosurgery + 56.9%, Michael Kwok + 43.7%, T. Garwe, Ph.D. + 42.7%, and Heather Qi + 41.9%.

Among participants trading between $20,000 and $1,000,000 in the enhanced growth division, Dr. Tito Adhikary of Cambridge, Massachusetts, leads after nine months with a 1,919.5 % gain. Dr. Adhikary set a record in this division in 2025, with a +2,115.1 % gain. He has a Ph.D. in Biomedical Sciences from Harvard. Second, + 338% is Jacob Congrove, from Atlanta. Third is Emanuela Elias, from Morrisville, North Carolina, + 190.3%. Ms. Elias was born in Vicenza, Italy, on a military base. Other traders with gains of 40% or more are Wai Hong Lee + 129.1%, Ashish Kumar + 90.8%, Scott Byrom + 78.9%, Alfredo Holguin + 75.7%, Mike Ablan + 69.9%, John Rodrigues + 58.4%, Dicky CCY + 48.2%, and Karl Domm + 46.2%.

Since its inception in 1983, the United States Investing Championship has attracted legendary traders, including Paul Tudor Jones, Mark Minervini, David Ryan, Sean Ryan, Louis Bacon, Dr. Edward O. Thorp, Mark Strome, Doug Kass, Sheen Kassouf, Marty Schwartz, Frankie Joe, Tom Basso, Cedd Moses, Gil Blake, Robert Prechter, Jr., and Bruno Combier.

The standings appear on financial-competitions.com, moneymanagerratings.com, Facebook, LinkedIn, and X at @USICOfficial. Articles about top performers have appeared in Business Insider, Institutional Investor, the Wall Street Journal, Barron's, Investor’s Business Daily, and Forbes, among other publications.

Entries for the 2027 competition are currently being accepted at financial-competitions.com, and moneymanagerratings.com.

The contest coordinator, Dr. Norman Zadeh (aka Zada), is also president of the Lotfi Zadeh Foundation, a charity created to build thousands of ultra-low-cost ($5,000/unit) residences in sparsely populated areas and to fully care for the homeless. (Visit lotfi-zadeh.com for more information.) Dr. Zadeh taught Operations Research in a visiting capacity at Stanford, UCLA, UC Irvine, and Columbia University between 1975 and 1983. He managed hedge funds from 1991 to 2012. His father, Lotfi Zadeh, created fuzzy logic. Norm is the author of four books: Hold'em Poker Super Strategy (released in 2020), Winning Poker Systems (Prentice Hall, 1974), The Rise and Fall of Perfect 10 (released in 2021), and Fox News: The Enemy Within (released in 2021).