Johannesburg, 27 January 2014: Registrations for this year’s JSE Investment Challenge are open. The annual competition, in its 41st year, provides South African high school learners and university students the opportunity to explore the world of investing by trading JSE listed shares through a virtual portfolio.
The beginner pupil and student traders will compete to generate the highest returns on their investments between March and September. Idris Seedat, the JSE’s CSI Manager in the Issuer and Investor Relations division, says that the JSE hopes that the Investment Challenge can assist to boost financial literacy among the country’s youth by providing them with access to information about the stock exchange.
“The Investment Challenge demonstrates to young people that investing is not something that only a small number of elite people can do or understand. It aids youth to gain the knowledge and practical skills of investing whilst introducing them to the world of finance,” says Seedat.
The Investment Challenge runs two competitions simultaneously throughout the year, one targeted at high school learners and the other for university students. Participants compete in teams that are made up of four members.
Each team is allocated an imaginary sum of R1 million. This virtual arena allows young people to trade in a risk-free environment. The teams can choose to trade in portfolios of their choice, ranging from Income, equity growth to a speculator portfolio. The teams compete across these portfolios and their performance is tracked and measured against each other.
All university students who are currently registered with a tertiary institution are eligible to enter the University Challenge.
Registrations are now open and the competition kicks off on the 10th March and ends on the 26th of September. Winners in the schools and university challenge will be announced at an awards ceremony held at the JSE in October 2014.
Schools Challenge
Each month the best performing school team in each portfolio will win R500 per team member, R500 for their teacher and R500 for their school.
There are final prizes for the top five school teams to the value of R180 000 for all three portfolios
To register for the schools Challenge go to: http://schools.jse.co.za
University Challenge
The university Challenge has three top prizes with the winning team receiving a prize of R25,000. The team in second place receives R20, 000 and the team in third place R15, 000.
To register for the university Challenge go to: http://university.jse.co.za
Scores and team progress in both the schools and university Challenge can be accessed via social media on:
Facebook: here
Twitter: https://twitter.com/JSELiberty_Game
As South Africa’s only full service securities exchange, the JSE connects buyers and sellers in four different financial markets, namely equities, financial derivatives, commodity derivatives and interest rate products. The JSE Ltd offers the investor a truly first world trading environment, with world class technology, surveillance and settlement in an emerging market context. It is amongst the top 20 largest equities exchanges in terms of market capitalisation in the world.
For further information, please visit www.jse.co.za
