Dialog reporter
NEWARK — If playing the stock market is on your to-do list for 2015, there’s a group of seventh-graders at Holy Angels School in Newark who could offer some sage advice. The four students, members of the school’s Stock Market Club, were the winning team in the University of Delaware Stock Market Game, defeating 99 other teams of fellow middle-schoolers and high school students.
In the Stock Market Game, teams were given a hypothetical $100,000 to invest over an eight-week period from mid-October through mid-December. The team that showed the greatest profit was the winner. About 25 Holy Angels students, under the guidance of social studies teacher Keith McKenica, participated.
The winners — Thomas Marzulli, Gianna Corbett, Caroline Cords and Madison Boggs — hit the jackpot late in the game by buying stock in a pharmaceutical company named Bluebird Bio. The company produced a drug that proved effective fighting a type of cancer, and it made the difference for the Holy Angels students. They bought the stock at $38 a share, and by the next Tuesday, it was selling at $90. The team shot from No. 15 to No. 1.
“At the same time that stock was going up, the rest of the market was going down. It was just one of those fortunate things that happened,” said McKenica.
The team’s overall profit was about $13,000.
Now, they are invited to a reception at UD this month, and the members will be recognized. One member of the team will be asked to speak about what their team did.
McKenica, who spent a year and a half as a stockbroker, normally includes something about the stock market in his regular classes. “I would teach a part of it in my class for social studies. When we would to the Depression and stock market crash, I would throw in something about stocks and tell them how stocks work and how corporations work.”
For the Stock Market Game, he touched on the difference between the NASDAQ and the New York Stock Exchange, but the youngsters did the work when it came to spending the $100,000. He said he found that the students were reluctant to spend a lot of money, and with only a few weeks left many had spent relatively little of their initial amount. He encouraged them to buy the most speculative stock they could to increase their chances of hitting it big.
Team member Madison said the club involved a lot of research.
“Mostly we bought pharmacies, like AstraZeneca,” she said. “Did some research on that, found out they were coming out with some new products, so we figured the stock would end up going up at that time. So we invested some money in that and a few other pharmaceuticals.”
She said she knew just the basics of the market when she started. She knew it would fluctuate, but she didn’t understand when to buy and sell. The team members picked up some knowledge on that and how much stock to purchase, and they also learned about commissions and fees that come with making transactions, along with what dividends are.
“I own some Disney stock, and I never really understood it. I never got around to invest any sort of time into learning more about the stock market. When I found out about the Stock Market Games, I figured it would be a good time for me to learn about the stock market, and I’m glad that I did,” Madison said.
Holy Angels principal Barbara Snively said the school used to have a stock market club, but this is the first time in a while it’s been resurrected. The Stock Market Games will pick up in the spring.
McKenica said he should have known to listen to the students when it comes to picking stocks. They always seem to know what the next big thing is. For example, he said, if he had listened to his own children, he would have bought Chipotle or Panera Bread before they hit it big.
“They’re really up on that stuff. If something’s going to become big, they’re going to know about it first. That’s what I told them, to buy something they know,” he said.
