Last Friday will forever be etched in the minds of Makhanda learners Yolisa Makina, Abongile Sikutshwa, Wanda Fusa, Sesethu Mtshelu and Bongani Mtsweni: it was the first time any of them had flown in an airplane.
Yolisa, Abongile, Wanda and Sesethu are in Grade 12 at Ntsika Secondary School. They participated in the JSE Investment Challenge and won the monthly prize for May as the top team in the country for the Income Game. Bongani Mtsweni, a second-year BCom Chartered Accountancy student at Rhodes University, was their mentor.
While the team were not overall prizewinners, the JSE invited them and their mentor as special guests because of their May achievement in the Challenge. The JSE paid for eight delegates to fly to the JSE Investment Challenge annual prize giving at their offices in Sandton. The other three special guests were Zukiswa
Mangqengwana (teacher at Ntsika), Khanyisile Nyundu (a third-year BCom Chartered Accountancy student at Rhodes University) and Leon Coopasamy (JSE catalyst for Rhodes University).
Nyundu was the mentor assigned to Victoria Girls’ High School. She and Bongani
were chosen as the top two mentors in the Makanda District for 2019. Mentors for the Challenge undergo special training from JSE experts.
The Ntsika learners could hardly sleep the night before – they were so excited to be flying for the first time. The Rhodes University Accounting Department provided the Makhanda group with snack bags and HoD, Professor Jackie Arendse, wrote a personal message to each learner, congratulating them for being a monthly winner and wishing them well on the trip.
The team left Makhanda at 5.30am 18 October 2019, via Rhodes University Bus to Port Elizabeth Airport. From OR Tambo International Airport, the team were shuttled to the JSE office together with 60 learners, mentors and teachers from five provinces.
The teams were addressed by JSE CEO Leila Fourie, Simon Brown, a regular speaker on investing on SAFM and BusinessDayTV, and Se Senzo Ndlangamandla (JSE catalyst for Walter Sisulu University).
Once the prizegiving was done, the delegates were treated to a lunch and got to network with participants from other parts of the country. The team was very grateful to the JSE for creating this opportunity for them.
Nyundu is passionate about making a difference in South Africa and she got to meet the CEO of Conservation South Africa. After her encounter she stated that: “Its experiences like this that makes me realise that I shouldn’t settle for anything but the best.”
Across South Africa, 23 000 high school learners and university students have spent the past six months competing for the number one spot in the Johannesburg Stock Exchange (JSE) Investment Challenge, which is the Exchange’s flagship programme.
The annual competition enables learners and students to understand the fundamentals of investing by trading JSE-listed shares on a virtual trading platform. Of the 421 schools that competed this year, the majority are from rural areas. Teams from the Eastern Cape dominated by winning the top four awards in the Income category. Mentors from the Walter Sisulu University in Mthatha, who previously participated in the Investment Challenge, have been instrumental in the teams’ success because of their continuous engagement and giving of their time to the learners.
Ninety-five universities and colleges across South Africa participated in the challenge this year.
Each winner gets a head start to building a secure financial future with a Satrix ETF investment which enables them to grow their winnings through smart investment decisions.
“Our aim is to demystify investment through building a financially literate society from as early as high school,” said says Ralph Speirs, CSI Officer at the JSE. “Equipping these learners with the fundamental skills required to build wealth, is part of how we are going about it.
“We believe that this initiative will be a life-long lesson that can impact what they do with their first income and every earning in their adult life going forward. I am particularly encouraged to see a lot more rural schools not only participating in the investment challenge, but winning top positions. In the past, it was predominantly the metro schools that performed well.”
Speirs says the JSE is playing a responsible role by teaching learners the value of consistent saving and investing for the long-term, in a country with a low savings rate and little long-term retirement planning.
Each school and university team is given a fictitious amount of R1 million to invest on a virtual trading platform that mimics the live stock market, but without any real risks.
Monthly and annual prizes are awarded to the best performing teams, their schools, and their teacher or mentor. The overall winning team members each receives R4,000 deposited into a Satrix Investment account, with the top performing university team also winning a trip to an international stock exchange plus R25000.
The Ntsika team – Team Optimistic Eagles – were the national winners of the May round in the income portfolio category against more than 2 051 teams.
Winners of the 2019 Investment Challenge
The Schools Challenge
Income Portfolio
First place: KCC-Traders, King’s Commercial College, Eastern Cape
Second Place: IZI BAD BOYS, Zimele High School, Eastern Cape
Third Place: KCC-Commercials, King’s Commercial College, Eastern Cape
Fourth Place: IZI Future leaders, Zimele High School, Eastern Cape
Fifth Place: Lethas D, Lethukuthula Secondary School, Gauteng
Equity Portfolio
First Place: The bizzar investors-PCCP, Acudeo College Crystal Park, Gauteng
Second Place: Fortius Quo Fidelius, Hoërskool DF Malan, Western Cape
Third Place: JJJM, DF Malan School, Western Cape
Fourth Place: Steyn City School – Grade 10A (2019), Steyn City School, Gauteng
Fifth Place: PHS, Pearson High School, Eastern Cape
Speculator Portfolio
First Place: Wise Owls, Queensburgh Girls High School, KwaZulu-Natal
Second Place: GKBK Pupils, Grenville High School, North West
Third Place: Minfin Capital, Herzlia High School, Western Cape
Fourth Place: The PHD’s, Ashton International College Benoni, Gauteng
Fifth Place: Prophets Of Profit, Reddam House Durbanville, Western Cape
Winning teams in the University Speculator portfolio
First place: 100 Baggers, University of Cape Town
·Second place: Gym buddies, Nelson Mandela University
Third place: ARBITRAGE, University of the Western Cape
To find out more, visit: https://schools.jse.co.za and https://university.jse.co.za or contact the Investment Challenge coordinators on 011 520 7344/7129. For further information, visit the JSE Challenge Twitter and Facebook pages.
