Helen Morgan students win first place in The Stock Market Game

SPARTA — At a ceremony held by the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA), four fourth grade students from Helen Morgan School were honored for their first place finish in the New Jersey North elementary division of The Stock Market Game. The team of Tyler Harms, Jack Wittenmeier, Christian Goncalves and Rowan Mendel, under the guidance of enrichment teacher Morgan Bleakley, accepted their award and reflected on the game, which ran from September through April.
“We learned how to see if the stocks were a good choice to make. We learned how to buy, sell, and short sell stocks. The stocks that we bought over our journey were Tesla, Apple, Lowe’s, Amazon and Gilead Sciences, Inc.,“ Wittenmeier said.
The SIFMA Foundation’s Stock Market Game is a project-based learning activity that meets Common Core State Standards and provides real world opportunities to practice 21st Century Skills in critical thinking, collaboration, and communication.
In the game, students are challenged to develop a successful investment portfolio by investing a virtual $100,000. Students work in teams of two to five to investigate and gather news and data on potential investments. Students utilize a broad range of informational texts and evaluate current events as an integral part of The Stock Market Game experience. Students buy and sell real world stocks, bonds, and mutual funds. They analyze and manage the risks associated with economic and political events and learn about the capital markets. The Helen Morgan students finished with a total equity of $114, 154.48 which landed them first place out of a group of 120 teams.
“We had a slight problem with the stock Tesla. We had to sell it about 3/4 of the way there, because it was tanking, (going down!) After that, we short-sold it because we thought it was going down even more. After we short-covered it, we bought it again. When we bought it again, it started to go up a lot,” said Harms, a second-year participant.
“We worked hard, concentrated and had fun,” added Goncalves
“We had a spectacular experience. We are so glad we had the chance to attend this outstanding activity. We learned about the stock market and investing,” Mendel said.
An independent study by Learning Point Associates found students who participated in the SMG program scored significantly higher on mathematics and financial literacy tests than their peers who did not. They also found that teachers who taught SMG reported the program motivated them to better plan for their future and to engage in financial planning, research, and use of investment products and services.
The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA) is the voice of the U.S. securities industry, representing the broker-dealers, banks and asset managers whose 889,000 employees provide access to the capital markets, raising over $2.4 trillion for businesses and municipalities in the U.S., serving clients with over $16 trillion in assets and managing more than $62 trillion in assets for individual and institutional clients including mutual funds and retirement plans. SIFMA, with offices in New York and Washington, D.C., is the U.S. regional member of the Global Financial Markets Association (GFMA).