Hone your investment game and win prizes

Singapore

FROM today, users of BT's investment portal BTInvest can trade stocks in real time with virtual money and stand to win prizes. BT has teamed up with the popular virtual trading platform TrakInvest to offer this service at no charge.

All users need to do is sign up on the BTInvest home page (BTInvest.com.sg) for a free TrakInvest account. BTInvest is also free to access. Upon registration, users will be allocated S$100,000 in virtual cash, which they can use immediately to invest based on actual market prices. They will also have free access to more than 12,000 research reports on companies, which are updated weekly. If they wish, they can participate in a competition. The three users who grow their portfolios the most by April 15 will win Samsung Galaxy Note 8.0 tablets. The competition is open to all residents of Singapore - although the platform is open to users anywhere. The platform covers six equity markets: Singapore, the US, Hong Kong, India, Australia and China.

TrakInvest's goal is financial education and talent identification. BT's goal is to give BTInvest users a new way to not only view market data, but interact with it in a collaborative, immersive and risk-free way.

"The best way to learn how to invest is with real stocks, at real prices, in real time - but not with real money," said BT associate editor Vikram Khanna.

The TrakInvest platform also has a social element: Users can track and follow other successful traders and, if they wish, emulate their moves. Since real names are required by TrakInvest not just for registration but to claim prizes, users can be reasonably confident that they are following actual people.

Singapore-based TrakInvest was founded in January 2013 by Bobby Bhatia, whose background includes a stint at AIG as head of principal investments. Prior to AIG, he was a principal at JP Morgan Partners working on Asian leveraged buyouts.

The platform is used by more than 150 educational institutions in more than 80 countries.

"TrakInvest and BT share a common vision of democratising news and information," said Mr Bhatia. "I believe TrakInvest's platform, in collaboration with BTInvest, will effectively reach out to a broad group of Singaporeans including students, retail investors, retirees, etc, and to empower them to learn and improve their trading skills."