Sanlam Limited : iTrade launches Facebook fantasy league for share trading

02/14/2013| 02:44am US/Eastern

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Online trading platform Sanlam iTrade has launched a first-of-its-kind Facebook app and competition aimed at exposing social media users to the vibrant world of online share trading. The iTrade Fantasy League will see Facebook fans voting for their favourite stock picks over a nine month period and Sanlam iTrade investing a full R1-million in the top stocks share portfolio.

Gerhard Lampen, head of Sanlam iTrade, explains that the fans will initially be given a basket of 90 shares to choose from, "Fans will vote to reduce these picks to the top 20 shares by the first of March with additional shares being voted on or off over the following months. They'll effectively be the portfolio managers for that time and manage the portfolio by 'liking' or 'unliking' a share." The 90 shares have been selected as the biggest stocks in the financial, industrial, retail and resources sectors.

Lampen said the main driver for the competition was education around online share trading, "Online trading is a wonderful, empowering 'do-it-yourself' form of investing which is compelling and lots of fun, but unfortunately many prospective investors find it intimidating because they lack knowledge. By watching the portfolio perform over the coming months, fans will learn about the JSE and the fundamentals of stock broking. In addition, every month we will focus on a different share in the portfolio and offer deep information on that share. Fans will be able to learn more about the share, predict its' month-end value and win prizes based on these predictions."

He explained the competition element. "Fans who accurately predict the actual profit of the portfolio at the end of the league in November 2013 will share in the profit of the portfolio, with 60% of the profit going to the fan whose guess was closest to the value, 20% to second closest, 10% to third closest and the final 10% to charity."

For more information visit http://apps.facebook.com/itradeleague/.

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