NMS Students Succeed At Stock Market Game

By Tanjua Damon

Understanding the stock market can be confusing for many, but four Newtown Middle School students mastered the market during the spring stock market game.

The team of Dan Fiscella, Billy Tierno, Eric Mayer and Michael Shannon took first place in the middle school division, where 661 teams of over 3,300 students competed in the state game sponsored by the Connecticut Post. Eighty teams entered from the middle school for the spring game. Each team consisted of four to five members.

The team admits that there was no real strategy behind selecting the stocks. The game allows the students to use $100,000 to play the game and they can receive an additional $100,000 through a loan.

“We had sheets of good stocks,” Michael Shannon said. “The ones we used to win came from our own ideas.”

The first place team made $28,000 during the ten week game, according to teacher John Ventresca. The students in the past have spent a lot of time with the stock market game to learn math skills, but now with the sixth grade curriculum there is a book that provides the skills so less time is spent on the game in general.

“The last two weeks, the market went up and their fortunes went up with it,” Mr Ventresca said. “We used to spend an awful lot of time on it. It is an important part of the sixth grade curriculum. Now we have an everyday math program with an integrated approach to math.”

Billy Tierno explained the group’s fortune and placement in the game increased when they bought numerous shares of Gateway. The group also had shares in IBM, Borders, Home Depot, WalMart, American Airlines, and AT&T.

Dan Fiscella found the game fun and helpful for the future.

“It was fun and when we get older this will help us when we need to buy stocks,” Dan said. “Trying to find out what stocks to buy [was challenging] because there was many, many stocks and trying to see what would go up and what would go down.”

The winning team received an all-expense paid trip into New York City where they toured the New York Stock Exchange and did some site seeing.

“The trip was fun,” Billy said. “We saw people running around and sitting at computers.”

Michael had some advice for future stock buyers.

“Buy stock when it really goes down,” he said. “When it stops going down, it will probably go back up.”

All the students felt the stock market game gave them an opportunity to experience the market as well as learn math skills that can be used forever.

“It’s a nice way to learn math,” Eric Mayer said. “And see how it is used everyday.”