New iTrade Fantasy League launched

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The iTrade Fantasy League aims to expose social media users to the exiting world of online share trading. Facebook fans can over a nine-month period vote for their favourite stock picks in a real share portfolio.

Sanlam iTrade will again invest R1m in the portfolio. Fans will be given a basket of about 100 shares and ETFs in five sectors - ETFs, Resources, Financials, Retailers and Industrials - and vote to reduce these picks to the top 20. Additional shares will be voted on or off over the following months. "Our Facebook fans will effectively be the portfolio managers over the nine months and manage the portfolio by 'liking' or 'unliking' a share," says Gerhard Lampen, head of Sanlam iTrade.

Share in profit

Fans who accurately predict the actual profit of the portfolio at the end of the league in November 2014 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.

"The number of fans who participated in last year's iTrade Fantasy League far exceeded our expectations, with more than 5,000 fans on our Facebook page. It showed us that South Africans have a real need to learn more about online share trading. It is a great 'do-it-yourself' form of investing, 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," says Lampen.

Last year's iTrade Fantasy League outperformed the JSE All Share Index - the latter increased by 13% over the nine-month period while the Fantasy League portfolio profit was 17.6%. The profit of R167,000 was shared by the three winners: Mark Anthony Swartz, Walter Biesenbach and Thabong Malatjie. More than R16,000 was donated to the Childhood Cancer Foundation of South Africa.