The young investors in the Baiduri Capital Investment Challenge (BCIC) 2021 continued their journeys with a presentation about their investment strategies, held at Baiduri Bank’s Headquarters last night.
Since the first briefing held in January, the teams have started their own individual investment journeys by coming up with their own objectives and strategies and conduct their own research with supporting rationales based off various financial reports and source materials. This whole process emulates the real-life practice seasoned investors undergo prior to making investment decisions. Several teams have already started trading, with some varied results.
The teams presented these findings, goals, and plans in front of the other teams and a panel made up of Baiduri Capital’s various managers.
Bull Market Investors, had their stock picks from the technology and health sectors trading at a lower price than when they initially bought them, catching the whole team by surprise. David Lim Xiaw Foong, the team leader said: “We initially thought these were good sectors to invest in given the global situation and especially after we did our own extensive research. Fortunately, we still have our reserve capital, so we’ll deliberate as a team before deciding if it will be worth the risk to stay in these same sectors or diversify our portfolio into a different sector altogether.”
Meanwhile, Mohammad Noor Firdhaus bin Yassin, the team leader of Fintroverts said that the hours of research they have spent as a team has helped them with their stock picks in the US market. He added: “We’ve only been trading for about a week or so because we’ve invested heavily in our research process. On top joining webinars suggested by Baiduri Capital, we’ve also been reading financial news articles and various YouTube videos to not only increase our knowledge but gain a better understanding of how the current US market is behaving.”
Debbie Lim Keh Ying, the team leader of Syn4rgy echoed this sentiment and said that the research they have done has been the focal point of their strategy, even when they ran into an expected trouble in their stock picks. Investing in the entertainment sector of the US market, they found that their stock pick dropped its price by half within a few days when it was bought.
She added: “We didn’t expect our stock to drop by so much in such a short amount of time, so it was a surprise for myself and the team. Now our focus has shifted to reassess how we can shift our portfolio to reinvest in the health and technology sectors.”
Peng Eng Soon, General Manager of Baiduri Capital said: “The presentations are a way of getting teams to form the habit of creating a complete investment plan based off their own team goals and strategies and most importantly, their own research. This allows the teams to get a feel of what our investors go through before making decisions. Along the way they may run into unexpected circumstances, but what is important is to not be discouraged and instead adjust accordingly, just like how seasoned investors would react.”
The BCIC is an annual initiative undertaken by Baiduri Capital as part of its efforts to cultivate and raise awareness on investments, capital markets services and securities trading as well as support AMBD’s goal of increasing investment literacy among the general public.
In the BCIC, each team is given BND5,000 as initial capital to invest into any of the securities listed on the Singapore Stock Exchange (SGX), Malaysia Stock Exchange (BURSA), Hong Kong Stock Exchange (HKEx), China A-Shares (SSE-A) or the US stock Exchange (NYSE MKT LLC, NYSE and NASDAQ). Any profits earned by the teams in the Investment Challenge will be retained by them.
What sets this year’s challenge apart from previous iterations is that this year, the 40 participants comprise alumni of local and international higher learning institutions – a first in the four years the BCIC has been running.
