Since 1983, elementary, middle and high school students across the state have played the Stock Market Game (SMG), competing against each other in teams to see who can make the most money investing in stocks over a 10-week period.

This spring, 228 Delaware teams comprised of 906 students invested a hypothetical $100,000 in stocks traded on the New York and NASDAQ exchanges from Feb. 29 to May 6. Students researched stocks and the companies that issue them and entered trades on the SMG website at real-time prices. Then at the end of 10 weeks, the team in each grade-level division with the highest value portfolio was declared a winner.

These winning teams were celebrated recently at a reception at the University of Delaware hosted by the Center for Economic Education and Entrepreneurship (CEEE), which is housed within UD’s Alfred Lerner College of Business and Economics. CEEE administers the program in the state with the support of the Investor Protection Unit of the Delaware Department of Justice (DOJ).

Craig Weldon, chief investigator in the Investor Protection Unit of the DOJ, presented trophies and certificates to the students who won the SMG and the associated Investwrite writing competition as well as their teachers.

Winners in each category (which included competitors from several Boys and Girls Clubs within the state), their schools, teacher coaches and the value of the team portfolios are:

• Elementary Division: Marialuisa Quinonez and Emelyn Ramirez-Morales from East Dover Elementary School with $104,619; teacher, Krista Seifert.
• Middle School Division: Alexis Murphy, Maddie Boggs, Caroline Cords, Joseph Harwell and Thomas Marzulli from Holy Angels School with $109,709; teacher, Keith McKenica.
• High School Division: Kyle Moskowitz, Brett Saunders, Madison Northshield, Joseph Noszek and David Dill from Conrad Schools of Science with $111,682; teacher, Michelle Northshield.
• Boys and Girls Club Elementary School Division: Ryan Givens, William Scott, Sean Scott and Kyler Rathbone; coach, Brian Daisey.

Middletown High School teacher Veronica Marine, who coached one of the participating teams, was asked what surprised her about her team.

She said, “When you see students searching for the next ‘hot’ stock, little do they know that they are researching and learning about how the market works, comparing statistics, researching new and existing companies and what is happening in our world.”

Other teachers agreed that SMG provides students with much-needed opportunities to understand the economy and how news events impact markets.

“We are also a global economy,” one teacher said, explaining that events happening in faraway countries like China have big impacts on the data his students research.

SMG competitors are also eligible to participate in InvestWrite, a national writing competition that challenges students to write critically about stock market investment strategies.

The three local InvestWrite winners, their schools and divisions were:

• InvestWrite elementary school winner: Pauline Zhuang from Linden Hill Elementary School; teacher, Janet Huckleberry.
• InvestWrite middle school winner – Vincent Owens from Gauger-Cobbs Middle School; teacher, Kerry Waugh.
• InvestWrite high school winner – Nick Ellis from Middletown High School; teacher, Veronica Marine.

Waugh, who coached middle school InvestWrite winner Owens, said, “Some of the essays the students wrote for InvestWrite really impressed me with their depth of knowledge in the stock market.”

“I think I may have some future stockbrokers in my class,” she quipped.

Waugh believes that more students should be encouraged to participate in Investwrite because “students gain a deeper understanding of how the stock market works using real-world scenarios.”

“I think this put the students in the investors’ shoes, and helped deepen their understanding of how the stock market works.”