Photo: Mr. Berry’s Grade 9 advanced math students from Bishop Lloyd placed third in the international Stock Market Game 2010. - Andrea Nicholl Photo
By Andrea Nicholl
Grade 9 students at Bishop Lloyd Middle School have ranked third in a worldwide stock market competition.
Courtney Lofstrom, Tiffany Hughes, Lisa Healey and Kennedy Vay received medals, certificates and ribbons acknowledging their team’s significant achievement in The Stock Market Game.
“We’re very proud,” said Hughes.
“We’re going to be wearing our medals for the rest of the day,” said Vay.
The girls were one of 14 advanced math teams from the Lloydminster Public School Division to participate in the international game presented by the Securities Industry And Financial Market Association (SIFMA).
The local team triumphed students from across the globe, but was defeated by a first place team in the United Arab Emirates and a second place team from Germany.
“It’s just awesome,” said advanced math instructor Jim Berry. “It’s a tremendous opportunity to learn the math curriculum in a fun and interesting way.”
Students mirror the real marketplace with internet research and news updates, learning the importance of saving and investing. Students start with a virtual cash account of $100,000 and strive to build the best-performing portfolio using live trading simulation. Students research, evaluate and trade common stocks and mutual funds from the New York Stock Exchange, Nasdaq and AMEX.
“It’s got a lot of potential for mathematical concepts because it’s direct application,” said Berry.
“A lot of the applications that we do in regular course work is talking about fractions, decimals, per cents, graphs and charts, but the students need to be aware of what that can be applied to in real life.
“It’s a real fun way of learning math, but it’s also challenging.”
“It’s really easy to see where it relates to real life and when you leave school this will actually be relevant,” said Healey. “You can’t predict exactly what stocks are going to do well and what ones aren’t so we chose ones that we thought would do well with the holidays, got some luck and did really well.”
The competition extended over a 15-week period, from January to April. The girls accounted for Valentine’s, Easter and the cold weather and chose to invest in Hershey’s chocolate, Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines, Intel and General Electric.
“They chose stocks which all made money, however the two major players that got them into third place were Hershey’s chocolate and Royal Caribbean.”
“I kind of wished it was my money,” laughed Vay. “We did really well.”