Widening its canopy of awareness and knowledge, the Investor Education Department's Jamapunji campaign has started stock trading competition for the university students in Rawalpindi and Islamabad. The participating universities include Fatima Jinnah Women University, SZABIST, Hamdard University, Bahria University, International Islamic University, NUML and University of Lahore Islamabad Campus and ICMAP.

The purpose of the competition is to enable the students to comprehend the rudimentary workings of the stock market and to take advantage of quality trading opportunities in the capital markets. This electronic trading competition is designed to provide students with hands on experience of the stock trading where students will trade using live rates fetched from Pakistan Stock Exchange Limited in a simulated environment.

Over 450 participants have already signed up for the competition, which will run in May. The winner of the competition will get a cash prize of Rs 100,000, followed by Rs 75,000 for the runner-up and Rs 50,000 each for third and fourth position holders. This competition has been sponsored by Arif Habib Limited, Elixir Securities Pakistan (Private) Limited and Top Line Securities Limited.

In light of the overwhelming response to the competition, the SECP chairman, Zafar Hijazi, has announced to make it a regular activity throughout the year. Such activities will help in establishing stronger academia-industry linkages wherein research houses of market intermediaries will be collaborating with the universities to develop the skills of students of the partnering universities, handholding the capital market investment journey of potential investors.-PR

Copyright Business Recorder, 2017