Visit the Stock Market Challenge site, here.

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Here at Veritas, the mathematics department has introduced a stock market challenge in which all students from 8th grade Algebra 1 through 12th-grade Calculus students, compete against each other in choosing to invest in stocks, commodities, and currencies. 

 

Each session of investing lasts two weeks, in which at the end of the session each student sells their three investments and buys back three new investments to hold onto for another session.

 

Each student tracks their investment and carries out a set of formulas in order to calculate their profit or loss on each investment, which includes the fee to carry out the transaction, and their overall rate of return.  After reviewing their calculations, they then enter their data.

 

The winner of each session gets to wear and sign our stock trader’s jacket for the day, to show off their investing accomplishment.

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This challenge not only opens up good dialogue with the students about the economy, government, and budgeting but also allows students to practice precise calculations and data entry skills.  After they submit their numbers online, they receive a correction sheet in which they can see their errors and make the necessary changes to their forms in order to track the current session correctly.

 

By practicing and learning these skills now, we hope to empower our students with the necessary skill set to be aware and even understand the cause and effect both in our nation’s economy at large and our individual bank accounts at home.  Students are able to observe the cycles in the market and the economic factors that impact it, as well as learning about investing tools such as profit earning ratio, high-low investing, previous closes, and the all-important company, commodity, and currency headlines.

 

All in all, this challenge encourages our students to be aware of the economic world outside of our classrooms and study the patterns that impact our economy, while practicing precise computations and accurate data entry along the way.