San Beda, FEU top virtual stock and bond trading tourney

MANILA, Philippines - Three financial management students from “dark horse” San Beda College landed the top prize in a six-week virtual stock and bond fund management tournament organized by prestigious multinational investment management firm ING.

Arvin John Coralde, 19; Lorry Ver Evangelista, 17; and Jon Arvin Gaerlan, 19; all 3rd year BS Financial Management & Systems Development students of San Beda College, and members of “Team Stock All-Stars”, won first place and an all-expense paid three day-two night trip to Hong Kong that includes a visit to the ING Investment Management’s Asia Pacific regional office there.

“We were really surprised that we won. But of course, we’re very happy,” Coralde told the STAR in an interview after the official award ceremonies held at the Filipinas Heritage Library along Makati Avenue in Makati City yesterday morning.

Coralde shared that besting counterparts from other schools such as Ateneo de Manila University (ADMU), De La Salle University (DLSU), University of the Philippines (UP), and others in “virtual stocks and bonds investing” challenge was overwhelming, since they joined the contest without much familiarity about the Philippine stock and bond markets.

Evangelista said that they only got a “crash course” in stock market trading and investing in the bond market through the orientation seminar given by ING Investment Management last July for the close to 200 teams that entered the tournament from eight schools namely San Beda College, FEU, AdMU, DLSU, UP, University of Asia and the Pacific, Assumption College, and the University of Santo Tomas.

The San Beda team got their highest returns from taking stock positions in property firms Megaworld and Vista Land, mining firm Lepanto Consolidated Mining, and in Lopez family holding firm Benpres Holdings.

Coralde said that they made the stock picks based on the low valuation of the said companies at the time they were looking for companies to invest in. All their selected stocks had their price per share at their 52 week lows.

Winning second place and an P18,000 cash prize was Far Eastern University’s Team Osiris, made up of Godfrey Vergara, 19; Madonna Valencia, 21; and John Darrel Ang, 19; all senior B.S. Finance students.

Ateneo de Manila University (ADMU), which won first place in the two previous year’s tournaments had to make do with 3rd place and a P12,000 cash prize with their Team “The Firm”, composed of Nicolo Rimando, 21; Marko Raldoe Florendo, 19; and Lennart To Tanganco, 20, all 4th year management engineering students.

Cesar Zulueta, ING Investment Management managing director and head, expressed satisfaction with the outcome of the investment tournament, noting that it has again successfully familiarized about 600 students that participated in the contest about investing in equities and bonds.   — Rainier Allan Ronda