Students learn the highs and lows of trading
December 26, 2008
By Laura Geggel
Economists may not have much faith in the current state of the stock market, but a group of seventh-graders at Snoqualmie Middle School doesn’t seem to mind.
As tumbling stock prices sent shockwaves through the country’s financial sector, Justin Talmadge’s seventh-grade classes at SMS dove headfirst into the market, recently purchasing up to $50,000 worth of imaginary stock.
Sandy Chang, Bradley Christensen and Justin Talmadge spare a moment from their stock market trading. All of Talmadge’s social studies students traded virtual stocks online.
“As a social studies teacher, one of my jobs is to teach about the economy,” Talmadge said.
Talmadge got the idea from Sriram Parameswar, the father of one of his seventh-grade students. Parameswar suggested the social studies class visit www.howthemarketworks.com to learn about how stocks are rated and traded.
“I started playing that with my daughter as a way to teach her how the stock market works,” Parameswar said. “When I grew up, I didn’t have a clue what a stock was until very late in life.”
Talmadge also invited a trader, the mother of Shelby Hamilton, to speak to his classes about the stock market and how to invest.
Using the Web site, Talmadge granted each child a virtual sum of money — $50,000 worth, to be exact — and told students to spend at least $40,000 on 10 different stocks. Talmadge’s four classes monitored their portfolios at least once a week during computer lab and many began checking their stocks during their free time.
Seventh-grader Coleman Stoll found himself in a situation many Americans would envy — even if he was spending virtual money instead of the real deal.
“Every time I check my stocks, they go up,” Stoll said. “I bought Boeing and when it went up, I sold it.”
Stoll also bought Apple, Costco and General Electric, among other companies. With an aunt who is a day trader, Stoll said he hopes to invest when he is older and has real money to spend.
Other students would probably jump at the chance to turn the imaginary money they made into a real profit. With $60,495 in the bag at the end of the trimester-long unit, Bradley Christensen made more than the other 167 participants from Snoqualmie Middle School.
Seventh-grader Brandon Sletten even got his parents hooked on the Web site.
“Every day they watched the news — they go on their computer to check how they are doing,” Sletten wrote on Talmadge’s blog.
The participant with the penultimate score was none other than Talmadge himself. The teacher lost about $26,500, a sum that was thankfully imaginary.
Sandy Chang made the second most, with a capital of $57,096. Before this unit, Chang said she rarely gave the stock market a second thought.
“I didn’t really know anything about it,” Chang said. “Mr. T introduced it to us.”
Chang managed to make good deals by investing in companies she supported — especially clothing stores.
She bought Nike Inc., Yahoo! Inc. and American Eagle Outfitters Inc., the only one she sold.
“I just bought up the clothes that I wear a lot,” Chang said. “I learned that you have to make good deals in order to get the stock right. You can earn money and you can lose money.”
Sriram Parameswar’s daughter Annapurni made a $3,000 profit from her $50,000 starting point.
“I told her to buy things she knew,” Parameswar said. “She bought things like Coke, McDonald’s and Wendy’s. She did well because people are eating there more.”
Unlike his daughter, Parameswar said he was losing money from his portfolio on the Web site.
“I’ve lost about 20 percent of my portfolio,” Parameswar said. “Maybe I should get her to run my portfolio.”
Reach reporter Laura Geggel at 392-6434 .221 or lgeggel@snovalleystar.com.
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