Winner takes home $20,000 in Macquarie’s Warrant Hotshot Trading contest
SINGAPORE, 11 August, 2009 – Macquarie Capital Securities (Singapore) Pte. Limited ("Macquarie"), has announced the winners of its third annual Warrant Hotshot Trading contest, with $20,000 going to the grand prize winner and three category prize winners each receiving $2,500.
The contest, supported by both the Singapore Exchange and The Business Times, saw participants pit their skills against each other, with active participants generally holding warrants over two-to-three underlying counters and making an average of one trade per day. Participants entered in four separate categories: Remisiers and Dealers; Private Investors; Media; and Students. Winners in each category were awarded $200 per week over the four weeks of the competition.
The overall winner of the contest was Mr Poh Chee Yap, an IT Consultant, who participated in the Private Investor Category. Mr Yap built a portfolio of more than $1.5 million during the four weeks of the trading contest. Making an average of 5.1 trades per day, his portfolio consisted primarily of Macquarie’s HSI, Capitaland and DBS warrants. Mr Yap traded both rises and falls in the market, active in both call and put warrants.
Mr. Barnaby Matthews, Head of Derivatives Singapore at Macquarie congratulated Mr Yap on his win.
"The aim of the Macquarie Warrant Hotshot contest is to increase investors’ understanding of warrants and to improve their trading skills. It is also a great opportunity for new investors to gain experience in warrants without risking any capital," said Mr Matthews.
"All competitors started with a hypothetical cash amount of $100,000 and were able to trade Macquarie warrants in a simulated trading environment that mirrored the real SGX warrants market," he said.
Mr. Yap, who had previous experience in trading warrants said: "My strategy was to focus more on the actively traded warrants."
Winners across the four categories adopted different strategies. Mr Jing Guang Chen a student from National University of Singapore, won the Student category. He made an average of less than one trade per day and favoured HSI call and put warrants. Mr Chen ended the competition in second place overall, with a portfolio worth $585,798.
The winner from the Remisier category, Mr Colin Song $428,305, finished in third place. Mr Song’s strategy was to buy and hold, making a single buy trade at the start of the competition, and then selling his position almost four weeks later. Mr Song’s final portfolio was worth $428,305.
Mr Chong Kah Yap was the winner from the media category, with a final portfolio value of $176,291. Mr Yap made an average of one trade per day and his strategy was focused on trading single stock call warrants, including warrants over Keppel Corp and Singtel.
Macquarie has built a solid reputation as one of Asia’s premier Warrants issuers and is the biggest issuer of warrants by market share in Singapore. Year ending 30 June 2009, Macquarie had 66% market share of the value traded on the Singapore Warrants market.
Macquarie takes a leading role in educating retail investors about how to invest in warrants. Macquarie runs regular seminars, operates a free-call warrants telephone number and distributes a free, daily e newsletter that contains the most up to date market information. Macquarie also provides free Live Warrant pricing via the website at www.warrants.com.sg.
About Macquarie Group
Macquarie Group is a global provider of banking, financial, advisory, investment and funds management services.
Macquarie Group’s main business focus is making returns by providing a diversified range of services to clients. Macquarie Group acts on behalf of institutional, corporate and retail clients and counterparties around the world.
Founded in 1969, Macquarie Group operates in more than 70 office locations in 26 countries. Macquarie Group employed approximately 12,700 people and had assets under management of $A243 billion at 31 March 2009.