At the end of the 2017-18 school year, a few young investors from RCHS took the top three regional spots in an annual stock market simulation for high school students. Under the leadership of economics and personal finance teacher Donna Wallace, students from Rockbridge used their knowledge of the stock market to invest virtual money into actual corporations and funds.
“Students are given $100,000 and they can invest in stocks, bonds, or mutual funds, as long as they’re over a certain value,” said Wallace.
The winners are determined by which students achieve the greatest amount of capital gain at the end of the game.
“The game runs from the beginning of February towards the end of April,” said Wallace. “Students invest and manage their portfolios for that period of time and then when the game is over, whoever has the highest value of stocks wins.”
The national Stock Market Game consists of a fall session and a spring session, but Wallace’s students only compete in the spring session. Students compete in teams of two against other high school students from VA. Rankings are given for the state-wide competition, as well as for specific regions. This year 2,515 teams competed in the state, and 287 teams competed in the James Madison University Region, where Rockbridge competes. For the first time since Wallace began competing in the game her students took first, second, and third place.
The first-place team consisted of seniors Tessa Bennett and Chesley Strickler, followed by seniors Trey Cathcart and Quinn Hoover in second place, and senior Eric Young with junior Brinson Mullis in third place. In addition to winning the top three spots in the region, these young investors finished seventh, ninth, and twelfth in the state.
All three teams were invited to an awards ceremony at JMU on Thursday, May 17, where they were presented with certificates and t-shirts. Winners from the elementary, middle, and high school divisions were all present.
At the ceremony, each team was asked to give a brief presentation on their investing strategies, and a short reflection on the game. The Wildcat winners each employed different methods to get ahead in the game. Bennett and Strickler credit their success to their aggressive investing.
“[Our strategy was] diversifying our portfolio and fully investing early,” said Strickler.
Bennett agreed that it was their willingness to go all-in early that led them to victory.
“I remember on the first day [Wallace] told everyone to have $25,000 invested and we said, ‘Well we have $40,000’,” said Bennett.
For Cathcart, the best part of the game was not his second-place finish, but the opportunity to work alongside his classmate and learn about the stock market.
“[I enjoyed] the collaboration with my partner, Quinn Hoover. I didn’t really know much about the stock market before this game, but now it makes a lot of sense,” said Cathcart.
For other students, it was simple luck that helped them win the game.
“I wasn’t quite sure what to do at first, but I soon realized that small stocks, if you invest in them early, can turn out huge profits,” said Young. “Therefore my partner Brinson and I decided to invest heavily in a mid-sized stock; WWE [World Wrestling Entertainment]. We got lucky that it grew exponentially.”
Wallace is proud of her students, and thinks that their success came from a mix of smart investing, and a stroke of good fortune.
“Dumb luck,” said Wallace. “There really is a big element of luck to it, to be honest with you, just because of the timing going on. Just because your stocks go down doesn’t mean it’s a bad investment; it just means the market was down at the time. But also, they worked hard to find stocks that had good value to them – ones that were different and weren’t the typical blue chip stocks that students tend to choose.”