The finals of the “Investment Challenge 2024” – a stock investment competition for Vietnamese students, took place on the evening of May 15, 2024, at Ton Duc Thang University in Ho Chi Minh City.
Vietnam Economic Magazine was one of the media sponsors for this event.
The final round witnessed the participation of nine universities: the National Economics University, the Foreign Trade University, the Banking Academy, Nha Trang University, Ho Chi Minh City University of Banking, the University of Economics Ho Chi Minh City, the University of Economics and Law (under the Vietnam National University Ho Chi Minh City), the Foreign Trade University (Branch 2), and Ton Duc Thang University.
Ultimately, the DAP team from Ho Chi Minh City University of Banking emerged as the champion. The first runner-up was team BETA from the University of Economics Ho Chi Minh City, while team BIF from Ho Chi Minh City University of Banking secured second runner-up.
Two teams, Finsmurf from the Foreign Trade University (Branch 2) and MONOTRY from the University of Economics Ho Chi Minh City, received consolation prizes.
This year’s Investment Challenge attracted over 2,300 students from 102 universities and colleges across the country.
After three challenging stages spanning four months, the organizers selected 34 teams, comprising over 100 participants, to advance to the next round. These students were then connected with securities companies based in Hanoi and Ho Chi Minh City to open real trading accounts and receive investment capital.
The total investment capital provided by the securities companies amounted to nearly VND 500 million. The investment period lasted for two months, from February 19 to April 19, 2024. The nine teams with the highest returns were chosen to compete in the finals.
At the Investment Challenge 2024 finals, the top three teams, BIF, BETA, and DAP, were selected to advance to the final stage. To determine the winner, each team was given two questions from the judges, with a maximum of three minutes to answer each question.
In the end, DAP emerged as the winning team with the highest score of 75.2. The team consisted of three members: Pham Thanh Phat, Nguyen Thanh Duy, and Nguyen Hung Anh.
When asked about their investment strategy during the market downtrend, DAP shared that they closely monitored the market and opted for short-term investments in sectors attracting capital inflows. Their first investment was in the seafood industry, allowing them to capture a “timing” profit of 7%.
Subsequently, DAP invested in the public investment sector, despite their assessment that its growth would not match the previous year’s level due to already high increases. However, they believed that public investment would remain a significant narrative for the year.
Additionally, DAP invested in securities companies’ stocks, anticipating that this sector would perform well during a market uptrend. Nevertheless, their final portfolio efficiency only showed a meager profit of 0.1% due to incorrect timing in the EVF and MSN codes, which incurred losses and dragged down the overall portfolio performance.
Dr. Nghiem Quy Hao, Director of the Center for Applied Economics Research and Training at Ton Duc Thang University and Head of the Organizing Committee, shared that through mentorship and support for the competing teams, as well as the opening of numerous investment accounts at securities companies, the competition fostered connections and collaboration between universities and financial institutions in the securities market.
This initiative also helped prepare a high-quality workforce for the financial and banking market, contributing to the sustainable development of the national financial securities market.
The Investment Challenge 2024 was organized by the Center for Applied Economics Research and Training and the Faculty of Finance and Banking of Ton Duc Thang University.
It received professional support from the Vietnam Securities Business Association and the Ho Chi Minh City Stock Exchange.
The judging panel and sponsors included leading financial, banking, and securities institutions in the market, such as Vietnam Joint Stock Commercial Bank Securities Company, Vietnam Export Import Commercial Joint Stock Bank (Eximbank) – Cong Hoa Branch, FPT Securities Joint Stock Company, Vietnam Asia Commercial Joint Stock Bank, Vietnam Financial Investment Securities Joint Stock Company – NSI, Rong Viet Securities Company, and Tai Viet Joint Stock Company (Vietstock)…
