Jul 27 2010
The fourth Macquarie Warrant Hotshot competition is set to start on 10th August 2010.
The contest lasts for one month in a simulation real time trading environment and the grand winner of this contest stands to win a cash prize of $20,000. There are also weekly cash prizes up for grabs for the top four players in each of the four categories.
If you are interested to take part in this competition, you can register here:
Jul 09 2009
The third Macquarie Warrant Hotshot competition is back!
Take part in this real-time simulated trading contest and trade with $100k of virtual cash. You stand to win the $20,000 grand prize or weekly prizes of $200.
The competition starts on 6 July 2009 and will run for a period of 4 weeks
For more details and registration, visit:
Sep 12 2008
It’s that time of the year again when Macquarie International Infrastructure Fund (MIIF) pays out their dividends. About half a year ago, I wrote two lengthy articles on my approach towards the MIIF scrip dividends (or any other scrip dividend scheme for that matter).
Fast forward six months, the price of MIIF had dropped to historical lows. It reached as low as $0.66 recently. The half-yearly dividend payout for this round is 4.25 cents/share and the scrip dividend pricing was at $0.70.
What this meant was that if someone had 100,000 shares, he could opt to receive either $4250 in cash or 6061 shares. Previously, it was a all-or-nothing either cash or shares option.
Macquarie had just improved their scheme whereby a person can opt for part cash and part scrip. This helps to avoid the problem of odd lots.
Being an owner of some Macquarie International Infrastructure Fund shares, I had originally intended to opt for scrip this time round. After all, at a price of $0.70, the dividend yield (based on 4.25 cents for 6 months) works out to be about 12.1% p.a.
Then it stuck me. As I looked at the live prices of MIIF two days ago and saw that it was trading below $0.70, I thought to myself:
Instead of getting scrip at $0.70/share, shouldn’t I just buy the shares from the open market at a price less than $0.70 and opt for the cash dividend instead?
If I can buy at $0.66, that works out to be a savings of $0.04/share.
Theoretically, all these sounds nice and good. However, in reality, you have to take into account things like brokerage fees, CDP fees, etc. Therefore, it might not work so well for someone with very few lots.
For example, a person holding 16,000 shares could get a dividend of $680, or 971 shares if he opts for scrip dividend. If he can opts for cash dividend and buys MIIF at $0.66, he ends up with 1000 shares and $20. However add in the fees and the $20 will become negative $10.
It’s still worthwhile compared to getting scrip as his overall cost would be $0.69/share instead of $0.70. A savings of $10 based on 1000 shares. 
If he makes use of the opportunity to further increase his holdings, then the marginal cost of acquiring that 1000 shares would be even lower.
At the other extreme, our 100,000 guy would have been easily better off by about $200 if he can buy MIIF on the open market at $0.66 instead of getting the scrip dividend.
Sometimes, it pays to stay vigilant and look out for opportunities no matter how bad current market conditions are. Usually, it is when there is extreme pessimism in the markets that you can find great opportunities.
Jul 07 2008
Macquarie has just launched their 2nd Macquarie Warrant Hotshot Competition. This stimulated live warrants trading contest starts on 14th July 2008 and will run for a period of 8 weeks.
There are four categories you can sign up and compete in:
Each group of participants will compete for the weekly prize of $200 and category prize of $3000. There will also be a grand hotshot prize of $20,000 for the overall winner.
Click on this link to register for the competition.
Generally speaking, trading for a competition requires a different set of strategy compared to trading your own portfolio.
In the former, the aim is to generate the highest possible percentage gains (in a short time) while taking on the corresponding downside risk.
In the latter, consistency of gains over time is much more important.
