Singapore housewife outsmarts big-gun warrants' traders

The 64-year-old woman trumped 2,000 competitors over eight weeks to win the 8,000-Singapore-dollar (5,194-US) warrants trading contest held by the Australian Macquarie Bank.

Chua said her son, an accountant, helped her initially because she knew nothing about warrants trading. He also entered the contest. 

"Madame Chua played a highly geared strategy, trading almost exclusively in warrants over (Hong Kong's) Hang Seng index, one of the more volatile Asian indexes," said Barnaby Matthews, head of warrants sales at the bank.

The aim of the "Warrant Hotshot" competition was to increase investors' understanding of warrants and improve their trading skills, he added.

"I found the contest challenging and educational," said Chua, who is using the prize money to visit her family in China.

Chua was able "to ride on the back of a 4.5-per-cent increase in the value of the Hang Seng over the eight weeks of the competition," Matthews said.

Her nearest rival turned the 100,000 Singapore dollars into 506,608 Singapore dollars (328,966 US dollars).Warrants allow investors to purchase a certain share at a set price on a specific date. //Deutsche Presse-Agentur (DPA)