Gymnasium beats UNAM in NSX, Old Mutual stock market investment competition
Old Mutual and the Namibian Stock Exchange concluded the Namibian Scholar Investment Challenge, a competition introducing the youth to stock market investments and providing them with knowledge on the broader aspects of capital market operations.
The initiative ran from 10 May 2021 until 22 October. In total, 162 teams from across Namibia’s 14 regions had the opportunity to trade listed shares on the NSX after receiving a phantom N$500,000.
This week, the two partners awarded the top five winning teams that took part in the challenge.
The Geals from Windhoek Gymnasium got the first prize of N$50,000 with a return of 30.8% on their initial investment followed by the team from the University of Namibia, the Eagle Investors, who came 2nd with a return of 23.3% and received a cash prize of N$30 000. Trading Masters came in 3rd with a return of 16.8% and walked away with a cash prize of N$20 000, followed by Edu United in 4th place who got N$10 000 and had a return of 10%, while NamWealth got N$5 000 and had a return of 8.8%.
To enable the participants to trade, each team received a starter pack consisting of basic information and a glossary on financial terminologies. The participants were tasked with doing research and applying analytical skills to make good investment decisions with the goal of increasing the value of their portfolios by the end of the trading date.
Tiaan Bazuin, CEO of NSX they have been running the competition for the past 21 years with schools and the last couple of years with universities competing in the same competition as well. It has always been a financial literacy initiative project. He added that the idea is that the institutions get involved to get the students to learn something completely out of their comfort zone.
“For this year, we had some of the best returns that we have ever seen in the competition, students really applied their minds and we had the highest number of teams participating,” Bazuin said. “The teams have done extremely well with the five top teams effectively outperforming the NSX Overall Index, recording the highest returns ever in the competition.”
Tassius Chigariro, Old Mutual Group CEO said the company spends its money in helping children discover their talent before their prime.
“The best gift to a child is helping them discover their talent. I am hoping today, we have done that; though discovering talent alone is not enough. There are many people who discovered their talents but did not produce any fruit. When talent is discovered, it is like discovering a fertile seed, it needs to be nurtured, it does not matter how good the seed looks, how fertile it is, if you do not put it in good soil and water, it will die. To the talents that have been discovered today, I urge the parents, the communities, the companies that are here, to nurture this talent,” Chigariro added.
Old Mutual was the headline sponsor, alongside FutureMedia (Nova 103.5) Namibia Savings, and Investment Association, Simonis Storm Securities and the Financial Literacy Initiative.
From the left, Tiaan Bazuin, NSX CEO; Tassius Chigariro, Old Mutual Group Chief Executive; Colette Rickert, Managing Director of Windhoek Gymnasium Private School and Levalle Underhill, representing the winning team, the Geals.
