Sophomores, juniors and seniors taking economics at Anacapa School participated in the Stock Market Game, an experiential investing program sponsored by the SIFMA Foundation.
Students were given 100,000 fictitious dollars to invest in the stock market over the course of 10 weeks, ending April 16, with the challenge of earning more than the S&P 500 over the same period.
Anacapa juniors Kai Urbany and Clarissa Sanchez placed third in the California-Los Angeles region.
During the game, Dylan Minor, head of school, guest taught an investing module, leading weekly seminars on investing and portfolio management, and working with social science teacher Chris Eckert. Students made professional-style class presentations on their stock portfolios, and winning teams from each class were awarded a cash prize.
“I used the internet to screen the stock market for the day’s biggest gains and losses,” Urbany explained of his strategy. “Every morning I’d find the stocks that gained the most, then short those stocks the next day. For me, it was a lot easier to predict when a stock would lose value than when a stock would gain value.”
Urbany said one of his takeaways from the process was learning that “to make money in the stock market in such a short period of time, the best method is to be aggressive.”
Sanchez and Urbany led the school with a final portfolio value of $130,155.82. Their gains outpaced the S&P 500 by 21.2% and placed them third overall in the Los Angeles Region out of 586 competing teams. Sanchez and Urbany ultimately finished 17th overall out of 3,485 statewide competitors.
Fellow juniors Kieran Caves and Julia Minor finished second place overall at Anacapa, earning a return of $3,222, good for 76th regionally and 625th in the state.
“The students demonstrated the ability to rapidly apply in-class knowledge to a real life scenario,” said Eckert. “While the past three months have been uniquely chaotic for the market, I was impressed by the students’ methodical and effective responses to such volatility.
“Their success is directly representative of the effort and thought they put into the process. A little bit of luck helped, too.”