BANDS Financial and Linerlytica launch the first virtual container freight futures trading competition exclusively for companies and executives involved in the container shipping sector along the Asia-Europe route.
Competition details
The competition is open to 20 companies and 200 individuals in separate company and individual leagues. Contestants receive virtual money to trade CoFIF, and the three contestants from each league with the highest equity at the end of the six-month competition period will win the 2024 BANDS Cup. CoFIF are container freight index futures listed on the International Energy Exchange in Shanghai since August 2023.
The registration period will launch on 1 May 2024 and last until 30 May 2024.
Below you can read all the terms and conditions of the competition:
Tiger Shi, CEO of BANDS Financial, a futures broker regulated by the SFC in Hong Kong, has witnessed how the adoption of futures paved the way for new ways of managing volatile prices across several different industries.
He believes while the widespread industry adoption of container freight futures may take time, a virtual competition coupled with training seminars is the best way for first movers to gain futures market experience without incurring any financial risk.
“Trading is a combination of knowing the underlying product, understanding the rules, and utilising the efficiency of one market to protect against the inefficiency and uncertainty of the other market. Container freight futures provide an opportunity for industrial users to lock in prices without counterparty risk, make their cash flows more predictable and protect against price shocks in the spot market. Ultimately, the companies that gain access to the futures market the earliest will benefit the most,” stated Shi.
Johnson Leung, co-founder of Linerlytica, a Singapore-registered shipping data analysis firm working closely with BANDS Financial to support the trading competition, believes the competition is a good training ground for companies and individuals without prior exposure to futures trading.
Leung, whose career spanned both the container shipping industry and capital markets, explains, “Unlike other freight futures products in the market, the CoFIF contract is digitally traded, so the user experience is similar to trading stocks on a mobile app. However, the fixed settlement date of futures contracts, short-selling tactics, use of margin, etc., make futures trading different from stock trading. Everyone will go through their own learning curve. And six months is an adequate period for events happening in the physical market to test everyone’s trading book.”
