Jamaica Money Market Brokers (JMMB) senior equities trader Donette Johnson was the winner of the recently concluded 2009/2010 Today’s Money Caribbean Masters competion with an annualised return of 1,114 per cent.

The ‘Masters’ is an annual money management competition where four professional fund managers are given a specified sum of money to invest — $100,000 — over a 52-week period across the stock markets of Jamaica, Trinidad & Tobago and Barbados. Each participant’s objective is to maximise their returns while maintaining the capital.

The victory marked the second time that Johnson has won the competition — having won in 2001 when the competition was confined to the local stock market.

“The second time around is even better than the first,” Johnson told Sunday Finance.

“Winning in 2010 is even sweeter, because on entering, my objective was to show to the investing public that regional investing is an untapped source for good returns and dividend income denominated in another currency, which provides a hedge against devaluation,” she said.

However, victory didn’t come easy for Johnson as the early stages of the competition, in her own words, were very challenging due to the uncertainty in the economic outlook.

Explaining her strategy, she said “Notwithstanding all the gloomy predictions, the minimum 20 per cent as required was invested in fixed income instruments, which was held constant throughout the year in order to maximize my equity strategy,” adding that “The remaining 80 per cent allocation was traded on the regional equity markets, which generated super returns for my portfolio. The strategy paid off, and today I am the happier for it.”

The regional markets provide exposure to over 90 companies on all three exchanges with a wider pool of stocks from which to choose and Johnson said she is excited about the planned merger of the markets onto one trading platform, the Caribbean Exchange Network (CXN).

“Investors will have the opportunity to access these markets as participant brokers will be able to trade from their home country on the Exchange of their choice,” she noted.

Johnson, who has worked in the financial services industry since 1992, has been employed to JMMB as a senior equities trader since May 2005.

The other three contestants in the 2009/2010 ‘Masters” competition were Stocks and Securities Limited’s research analyst, Michelle Hirst; Jason Dear of First Global Financial Services; and Jason Gokool from Trinidad & Tobago-based Republic Securities Limited.

Hirst, with a 492 per cent annualised return, was runner-up in the competition. Dear emerged in third place with a 260 per cent annualised return at the end of the 52-week competition, followed by Gokool with 0.6 per cent annualised return.

The ‘Masters’ competition was launched in 2000 by Today’s Money Limited in an effort to educate the general public on how to invest wisely and ultimately achieve economic growth.