Buy or Sell: JA Program Simulates Stock Exchange Investing
YOUNGSTOWN – A second battery in a Franklin Motors J-Series sedan bursts into flames in a week causing a recall. Do you sell the stock or buy it?
Students participating in the JA Stock Market Challenge had to make those split-second decisions in a simulated stock competition Friday morning, as they invested $500,000 per team.
The event challenged students, mostly in high school, to compete with small teams of their peers at Youngstown State University’s Williamson College of Business Administration.
“We have a Junior Achievement program called ‘Take Stock in Your Future,’” said Kristen Taylor, development and special events manager at JA of Eastern Ohio. “We gave them that curriculum to implement during their school time so they were prepared to come here and this is like their final exam.”
About 80 students from seven schools came to the event. The schools divided their students into teams of three or four students, leading to 24 teams in the competition.
“We have floor traders who are local community and business mentors to them,” Taylor said. “They raise their paddles if they want to make trades and the floor traders have iPads and they will make their trades for them.”
A ticker on the wall informed students how the stocks were performing. But just when students thought they had it figured it out, newsletters and announcements came out that affected the stocks.
“Anything we can do to give these kids this kind of an education… even if it’s just base knowledge,” Taylor said. “If we can get them at a younger age, they will be more successful and more prepared in their future.”
PNC was the title sponsor and Regional President Ted Schmidt kicked off the competition by ringing the JA stock exchange bell. He admitted he would have relished this type of competition as a teenager.
“JA’s a great program and for them to be able to bring high school students on campus to really give them more financial literacy, it’s a great program,” Schmidt said. “It’s the first year as you can see the excitement from the students. They’re engaged and I think this program will only grow over the years.”
On cue one “Floor trader here,” yells out one student with a paddle.
“There’s just a lot of energy in the room. That’s what I want to see is the excitement of the kids and the competitiveness but at the same time, learning about the stock market and how to make decisions on making stock picks,” Schmidt said.
Ryan Pasteur, the vice president and director, client and community relations with PNC and a former board president for JA, said the stock challenge curriculum has both local and national support.
“There’s a lot of kids who never get this opportunity to be this interactive and have emotion into it, because they’re competitive. They want to win. So that will affect things with emotions of how you look at the stock market. It’s a lot of fun.”
John Childs, the personal finance instructor with the NEO IMPACT Academy, brought six teams to the competition, including two groups of 8th graders taking his high school credit level course.
“They have a real fire for this. We’ve been doing simulations for a couple weeks now and they are just super excited to compete,” Childs said. “They’re learning about the stock market, learning how it works, learning about the ebbs and flows and how news affects the stock market. They’re learning about notoriety among the businesses.”
Childs pointed out he has never seen these students “so engaged” as they sought bragging rights against other students.
One of the teams Childs brought – Impact C – took a home the third place trophy from the event.
The first and second place teams were from Lakeview High School – the Retail Apes and Team Blue – respectively.
Although only in its first year, organizers are hopeful the event will grow with more competitors taking the stock exchange floor in future years.
Prior to the competition, students attended a panel discussion where Schmidt; Dillon Andrews, a trust officer at Western Reserve Trust Co. in Cleveland; Christian Febinger, client solutions associate at Factset in Youngstown; and Dr. Huaiyu Peter Chen, associate professor at the Lariccia School of Accounting and Finance at YSU, talked to the students about the pathways their careers took. Students asked questions about YSU, the business school, investing and possible professions they should consider if they find they have a real passion for finance and business.
The men gave them advice about choosing a college, connecting to local companies through internships and job shadowing programs, starting to save now for their futures, finding a long-term investing strategy and the difference between investing and speculating.
Copyright 2024 The Business Journal, Youngstown, Ohio.
