The fourth installment of the Baiduri Capital Investment Challenge (BCIC) concluded with a prize presentation ceremony at the Atrium of Baiduri Bank Headquarters, 1 Jalan Gadong yesterday.
Two teams exceeded expectations and secured profits at the conclusion of the challenge – team Syn4rgy made a profit of BND 3,808.38, while team OneStock Co made a profit of BND 1,632.80.
The challenge was an 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 Brunei Darussalam Central Bank’s (BDCB) goal of increasing investment literacy among the public.
In the BCIC, each of the nine participating teams was allocated BND5,000 as initial capital to invest into any of the securities listed on the seven stock exchanges in Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong, China and the US. Any profits earned by the teams in the Investment Challenge would be retained by them.
Throughout their investment journeys, participants were also given direct access to licensed dealers who acted as their mentors and guided them in the current market.
The BCIC began in January last year and officially ended in July 2021. What set this edition of the challenge apart from previous iterations was that the 40 participants comprised alumni of local and international higher learning institutions.
The teams comprised a diverse mix of participants with varying levels of investment experience including alumni of Universiti Brunei Darussalam (UBD), Universiti Teknologi Brunei (UTB), Politeknik Brunei (PB), Universiti Islam Sultan Sharif Ali (UNISSA), Laksamana College of Business (LCB) as well as from the University of Bath and University of Birmingham in the UK.
Sales and Investment Manager of Baiduri Capital Yeo Kun Yu, as the Investment Challenge Secretary and one of the mentors for the participants said: “Since the beginning, the aim of the Baiduri Capital Investment Challenge has always been to cultivate awareness and generate interest in financial investment and capital markets. This edition of the challenge was certainly different because we had graduates from local and international higher learning institutions, who already had some prior personal experience with investing.”
What they learnt from the challenge were valuable lessons that our own seasoned investors also apply – researching and creating a complete investment plan based off their own team goals and strategies. This allowed them to get a feel of what our investors go through before making decisions. Along the way they might have run into unexpected circumstances, but what’s important was that they weren’t discouraged and instead adjusted accordingly, just like how seasoned investors would react.”
