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Pick a school:
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TAKE THE STOCK MARKET CHALLENGE
In the Spring of 1998, high schools all over the country took part in online stock market games.
At one site created by high school students, InvestSmart, each team gets $100,000 of fake money and invests in stocks at real prices taken from the stock market every 20 minutes.
ARE TEENAGERS IN THE U.S. READY FOR WALL STREET?
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"The stocks we
chose were companies that made clothing, sporting goods and computers.
We had researched those stocks on the Internet and thought that they were
priced lower than usual and had a good potential to increase in value.
These stocks did rise a little bit the first couple of weeks. We then
spent $500 on a real estate company stock. This stock turned out to be
a loser. At the end of the tournament, our grand total was $11,747.69
and we had a 17% gain. We had the top gain out of all the teams that
played in our high school. We had our picture and an article published
in the school newsletter. It was great to see our portfolio go up and
because of this the game was really fun for us." --Teresa and Stacy,
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Well, a lot of you were
able to take advantage of the amazing rise in stock prices this past spring.
On
April 3, the Dow Jones Industrial Average, a measure of the stock market, went
up past 9,000 for the first time in history. Brad, Mike and Jeremy (pictured
below) of Clinton
High School in Clinton, Iowa made money without even trying. Here's an excerpt
from their diary:
"We started out the game just joking around and picking ridiculous stocks. After the game had been going on for awhile, we noticed that our one stock had been going up pretty steady and that we had been making money off of it.
"After that we actually started to take an interest in the stocks. We started to get some information from other people to see if we could actually get a good ranking in the game. One of the stocks we chose was a computer company because we heard that it had a new zip drive coming out. We thought it might start to make money like it had in the past.
"Even though we started by messing around, we learned quite a bit. The computer stock turned out to be a loser. We took some chances and learned that you have to take chances to hit it big. We also learned that some of the stocks you least expect to do well go up and the ones you have high hopes for sometimes go down."
Students made their choices by doing research and by looking into companies that make products they used. Here's an excerpt from the journal of Pablo, age 17, of Sidney Lanier High School, San Antonio, Texas.
Being an avid sneaker fan and a cereal lover, I chose
those as my investment companies. The choice also gave me a variety of different exchanges: the cereal maker was associated with NASDAQ and sneaker manufacturer was in the NYSE.
As we began our adventure towards
the ups and downs of Wall Street, I noticed how my sneaker stock was stable without tremendous drops or rises. It wasn't exciting to watch that stock, but it made me a profit. Overall, I gained $7,3909.62 from sneakers, and $123.54 from cereal. The exercise brought out the Wall Street instinct in each of us and I couldn't help feeling competitive, asking everyone else how they did and wanting to compare earnings. This experience was fun and meaningful-- it taught me how to invest in the real market, something that I will do in the future.
Jake and Nick of Clinton High School learned the perils of selling:
"We started out with a drug manufacturer stock and a technology stock.
Since they both did poorly at first, we sold them. This was a big mistake because a couple of days later the drug stock went up four dollars a share. We sold it at 124 and it was 128 two days later. We later watched a video and a broker mentioned five companies. We bought all of them. At the end of the game, only two made money for us. We learned that the best way to make money is probably to pick some good stocks and don't check them again for a few years. They will probably go up in the long term but trading short term is pretty risky."
Sometimes it's hard to know when to take people's advice. Bobbie, Terry and Jessica benefited from good advice:
"Choosing stocks was not easy for us because we were not familiar with the stock market. Despite this we did our own investigation and came out with some very good picks.
"At the end of the game, we ended up with $10,309.32 which was a 3% gain. On the Internet, we went into a stock chat room and that is where we found one of our best stocks. It went up the entire time. As the game went on, we invested most of our money in the same stock.
"We were advised earlier in the year by a stock broker we visited to invest in a multimedia company. We bought it at 8.3 and it closed at 14.93 at the end of the game. I guess he was right! Our big loser was a company that sold cigars. The rest of our stocks went up. We learned that it is probably a good idea to take the advise of a good stock broker if your are going to get in to the stock market."
For more diary entries, click on a school:
Bisbee High School, Arizona
Metro Boulevard Alternative High School, Wichita, Kansas
Republic High School, Washington:
Do you have a stock market adventure to share? Send us your stories.
The
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