Students take on the stock market

With $100,000 to burn, for the next 10 weeks, a group of students at the Surry Early College High School will be competing in a stock market game.

Students in Jonathan Amos’ social studies class will be competing within the classroom as well as among other students at the regional, state and national levels. Students will try to invest their “money” wisely so as to end up with the most at the end of the game period. The national winner, who came from Winston-Salem last year, wins a family trip to Disneyworld and a chance to ring the bell at the stock exchange in New York among other prizes.

The game officially started Feb. 9 with students having access to computers and the power to make mock purchases of stock for the first time on Tuesday. In order to allow the students to be as prepared as possible for the game, Amos had Tony Childs, a financial planner, come into the classroom to talk about finance and financial responsibility.

“I talked to them about compounding interest which is the eighth wonder of the world. I also spoke about the importance of not going into debt and having to borrow money,” he said. “They seemed pretty interested. I think this is a good lesson for them. They get a chance to practice with pretend money and make some mistakes.”

Before beginning to purchase stocks, the students visited the Yahoo! Stock Exchange Web site to get the latest information on companies in the hopes of making the best decisions. Most chose to go with well-known companies and focused on those that sold necessities.

“We’re going to go with stuff that everybody uses every day,” said Josh Mears.

Yanni Goulas, Jewel Hardin and Courtney Noah were the first group to purchase stock, going for E-bay, Google and Wal-mart.

“Everyone needs them. We’re going to go with what people need,” said Noah of the logic behind the choices. “No matter how high groceries are, people run to Wal-mart.”

Rebecca Bates, Kaitlyne Colbert and Haley Collins are looking toward purchasing stock in companies that sell only necessities rather than frivolous commodities. Colbert and Collins have both played similar stock market games before but do not feel that it puts them at any advantage.

“We’re going to try to borrow as little money as possible,” said Colbert.

Amos attended a financial literacy conference over the summer where he was introduced to the game. When he discovered that the Department of Public Instruction offered a grant to cover the cost of entering the program, he applied for it so his students could get real life experience in the stock market and learn about investing.

“Hopefully they’ll see the different approaches to investment,” he said. “There is a new initiative for personal financial literacy so this goes along with that curriculum. It should make them more aware of saving.”

Students work in groups of three to decide which stocks to purchase with their $100,000. Stocks must cost a minimum of $5, which means students cannot purchase penny stocks, and they must buy at least 100 shares in the companies. Amos plans to give the students about 15 minutes in class once a week to monitor their progress and make decisions whether to buy or sell. They can also work during any free time they may have.

“They seem pretty excited about it,” he said. “Having a financial planner added a lot to it. The majority of them know what they’re doing when it comes to buying stocks.”

Contact Morgan Wall at mwall@mtairynews.com or 719-1929.