Teams from Siloam Springs High School placed first and second in the regional Arkansas Stock Market Game.

They competed against more than 425 other high school teams in the Northwest Arkansas region, based at the University of Arkansas in Fayetteville. The first place team received a $125 prize and the second place team received a $75 prize.

The Stock Market Game is a national program of the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association that allows students to invest a virtual $100,000 in stocks, bonds and mutual funds, according to the Economics Arkansas website, www.economicsarkansas.org.

More than 170 Siloam Springs students -- or 60 teams -- in Michele Jackson's economics class participated in the 12-week challenge, which began in January and ended in April.

The first place team of Johnathon Craddock, Elijah Coffey and Jordan Church made a 14.48 percent gain on their investment of $99,126.66, totalling $14,351.66, and leaving them with an ending value of $113,478.32.

The second place team of Maggie Buck-Mallow, Hayley Defoe and Madison Osbourn made a 12.21 percent gain on their investment of $99,060.89, totalling $12,093.31, for an ending value of $111,154.20.

"I couldn't believe they won," Jackson said. "The stock market was so crazy this spring. One day we would be first place, the next day 20th place. Even up until the last few days, I didn't know they would win, the stock market was so volatile."

At the beginning of the semester, Jackson invited financial advisor and former district teacher and coach Tad Davis to speak to students. Craddock and Coffey said that Davis taught them to look for companies that sell products they use every day, such as Amazon and Netflix.

Craddock said he did a lot of research and learned that Neflix was about to release its annual report and that the company stood to benefit from the end of Net Neutrality. Netflix stocks went up 70 percent during the time period of the competition, he said.

Defoe and Buck-Mallow said they invested their money in brands that teens like, and companies that were coming out with something new.

"One piece of advice (Davis) did give us was to leave everything alone," Defoe said. "We didn't touch our account for basically any of this and it paid off really well."

Jackson said she was proud of her students for acting on what they learned.

"I was really proud of them, because I know those two teams especially took a lot of time to research and they really did listen to what Tad Davis told them about looking at the futures of these stocks," she said.

Jackson said this is the first year that Siloam Springs has participated in the Arkansas Stock Market Game. The school received a grant from Economics Arkansas to pay the $15 entry fees for each of the 60 teams.

General News on 05/09/2018