Following the previous success of SGX’s StockWhiz trading competition, SGX is once again launching StockWhiz this year. StockWhiz 2015 will take place from 1 April to 30 June 2015, and is open to residents aged 18 years and above from Singapore and regional countries. To compete, participants have to download the TradeHero app available on iOS and Android.
StockWhiz participants will get S$2,500 of virtual currency to “invest” in more than 400 Stocks, Real Estate Investment Trusts (REITS) and Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) listed on SGX. They can also choose to “follow” top-performing contestants and mirror their portfolios. The overall winner will win S$3,000 cash and the top 30 winners each month will each win S$100 cash. Top performers also get to keep their returns in real trading commission credits sponsored by OCBC Securities.
Lynn Gaspar, Head of Retail Investors at SGX, said, “SGX is committed to advocating smart investment in the stock market, by highlighting the various techniques that apply to different investment goals and risk appetites. Our retail education initiatives teach long-term investors how to start with simple income-generating products and to build a diversified portfolio, as well as introduce more experienced investors to trading for shorter-term price gains. StockWhiz is a perfect trading game for investors to learn how the stock market moves in a fun and risk-free way. Participants can potentially win some of the S$200,000 worth of prizes available!”
In addition to StockWhiz, new investors can learn about investing and trading through new tutorials on the SGX Academy website (sgx.com/sgxacademy) and the TradeHero App. These tutorials are presented in fun, easy-to-understand, three-minute videos, covering a variety of topics including the basics of trading and investing, riding big market cycles and stock valuation. Over the next few months, SGX will add more tutorials on topics around ‘Making Your First Trade’ and ‘Behavioural Analysis & Market Timing’, which will also be used by various tertiary institutions to educate students.
SGX StockWhiz 2015 and the e-tutorials are the latest initiatives in SGX’s broader campaign to educate new retail investors. Last month, SGX announced its partnership with the National Institute of Education, Singapore (NIE) to increase the financial literacy and investment knowledge of more than 30,000 teachers through face-to-face education and e-learning. Around 4,000 teachers will be educated through an eight-module investment education programme over the next three years. This comes after SGX’s first-ever My First Stock Carnival weekend event in February and the launch of various investing tools – SGX Investor Roadmap and the SGX Mobile App – to guide new investors on selecting the stocks that best suit their investment profile. Following the success of the carnival, SGX plans to organise similar events in the coming months.
The number of new investors continues to increase, and almost half of all new retail CDP account holders are under 30. In the 12 months to end-February, there were 71,050 new Central Depository (CDP) accounts, bringing the total to 1.7 million accounts. Of these, 849,671 or 49% had holdings. The number of subscribers to SGX’s My Gateway Facebook rose 45% year-on-year to 52,217. In 2014, a total of 90,000 people – a 50% increase from a year ago – attended the many ongoing financial education programmes and events organised by SGX Academy and its partners.
