Gilpin Finance Class Competes at Junior Achievement Stock Market Challenge
By Trystin Swan
“Trader, trader I’d like to buy and sell,” is all that was heard in the room full of finance students from different school teams as they battled it out to be on top of the Stock Market.
Last Thursday, March 15th, Gilpin County’s Financial Literacy class traveled to the Junior Achievement Stock Market Challenge at the Charles Schwab Center in Lone Tree and competed with other schools to see who would come out victorious with the first place trophy. The Gilpin Financial Literacy class of 20 students went on the field trip to see first-hand how the economy works, and how to better value their personal finance.
One of the traders and volunteers at the stock market said that it helps students learn how to build a financial investment portfolio early in their lives. It gives students the opportunity to learn how to manage money, and make goods affordable which is an important skill to have. This is the lesson that many high school students and especially Gilpin County’s financial literacy class take as they start preparing for the start of their college journey.
Junior Achievement sets up this mock stock market to better teach students with a hands-on stock trading experience and understanding of personal finance. Junior Achievement says that the stock market experience also tries to mimic the feeling of the actual stock market. And that’s exactly what it does with a busy and crowded mock system complete with stock traders, which does a great job of making the entire stock trading floor scenario feel exactly like the real thing.
Although none of Gilpin’s teams came out on top, the rankings weren’t bad. Team 1 ended up in 59th place, Team 2 ended in 23rd place, Team 3 ended in 17th place, and Team 4 ended in 39th place. Overall the trip was a great learning experience for these finance students who competed, and they can apply valuable lessons learned to their everyday lives. Now if they had only given us real money to trade and invest…