Stocktracking
This stock-track portfolio really kept me interested in class and I had a lot of fun doing it. Throughout the semester I made 40 different trades. The day I received my cash I bought 15 different stocks. I purchased 500 shares of each stock. Coca-Cola was my first. I didn't know much about the market, so I wanted strong, low-risk stocks. Next I bought Tommy Hilfiger Corp., because I really like their clothes and I felt that they were going to sell a lot more with the new line of kids clothing they were putting out. MCI communications was my next choice. My mother's cellular phone is hooked up with them and I figured I might as well support the company. Inter-Tel was next. I thought I was buying Intel, but after I realized that I hadn't I kept it to see how it did. Then I bought the real Intel. I didn't actually know anything about the company, but people in class were talking about it so I figured I would give it a shot. All the kids in class were buying stock in computer software and upcoming telecommunications companies. I really didn't know anything about them so I bought a stock called Nextlink communications. I have no idea what the company is about, but it did pretty well so I was happy. Then I bought NPC International Inc., just because I wanted more stocks and it sounded good. I bought Music Land stores because I play the guitar and I love music so I had to buy that stock. I already own Walt Disney stock in real life. My grandfather bought it for me for my 10th birthday. If it's good enough for him it's certainly good enough for me. K-Mart had changed their name to the Big-K about a week before I bought the stock. Maybe this would bring in some new clientele. I thought that just ...
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...ment strategy I said that I was willing to lose up to half of my total capital due to the fact that I am so young and have plenty of time to make it up. I think that both of the statistics show a close similarity between my investment strategy and my actual portfolio.
My only regret is that I didn't mail in my money soon enough. If I could have had another 3 weeks I think it might have made a difference. I don't think I would do anything differently but I do feel that it took me a while to get the swing of things. I am going to do some stock-track again on my own time, just for fun, and now I think I will be a little more prepared for it. I learned how the stock market works from hands on experience. I see how easy it is to lose your entire savings, or double or triple them. If you play smart and use your head, there is a lot of money to be made out there.
Too often, students are taught that their lives are defined by who they are and what they do, not by circumstances. But circumstances can be very crucial to determining how a person’s life is shaped. It’s no secret that not all schools and neighborhoods are created equal. Some schools offer advanced classes, and college prep, and opportunities, while some schools don’t even have textbooks. Even within the circumstances, there are circumstances. The students in the latter school that lacks textbooks may have parents who go the extra mile to ensure that they have more opportunities, or could have parents who don’t have the resources to do that. Environment and circumstance can make a huge difference, and Wes Moore’s The Other Wes Moore is a fantastic
Before my years in high school, I rarely put time and effort into studying and constantly associated with my friends at school; that is until I entered high school. The different competitive atmosphere at high school caused me to suddenly prioritize my studies ahead of everything else and my ambition became greater than ever. I began to interact less with my old friends and become less sociable with those around me. My parents also began to notice this drastic change and encouraged me to once in a while contact my old friends. During the beginning, I contacted my friends about two or three times a week, but the phone calls began to gradually diminish. I began to abandon my previous cheerful, ebullient nature in order to conform to the competitive, tense study environment at high school. As long as I successfully accomplished my goals and was accepted by others, I was willing to alter myself in order to assimilate into the mainstream environment. Through my hard work and perseverance, I was able to reach my goal and receive the acknowledgement of others; however, despite fulfilling all my ambitions, I did not feel any joy or satisfaction within myself. Even though I successfully accomplished my objectives in school, I realized that in return I completely sacrificed my social life. Despite being accepted by others, I began to feel a sense of loneliness and longed to
My story began on a cool summer’s night twenty short years ago. From my earliest memory, I recall my father’s disdain for pursuing education. “Quit school and get a job” was his motto. My mother, in contrast, valued education, but she would never put pressure on anyone: a sixty-five was passing, and there was no motivation to do better. As a child, my uncle was my major role-model. He was a living example of how one could strive for greatness with a proper education and hard work. At this tender age of seven, I knew little about how I would achieve my goals, but I knew that education and hard work were going to be valuable. However, all of my youthful fantasies for broader horizons vanished like smoke when school began.
I am the product of divorced parents, poverty stricken environments, and a blended family, but I refuse to let that dictate the outcome of my life. At the age of ten, I had to assume the role of a fatherly figure to my three siblings, so I missed out on the typical childhood most would have had. I grew up in neighborhoods where gangs and criminal acts of violence were a pervasive occurrence, but I resiliently did not allow the peer pressures of others to force me to conform to their way of life. By the age of 15, I received my worker 's permit, and that allowed me the ability to help my mother financially in the absence of my father’s income. I worked the maximum amount of hours I could while balancing my academics and extracurricular school activities. I was a scholar athlete and triathlete in high school, and although I continuously faced much adversity, I still managed to be accepted to the University of California State, Bakersfield after I graduated from high school in 2005. Sadly, after
I have already created a VSE account and know how the website works, where to get the information I need, how to join ‘games’, and have read the ‘Learning the Basics’ section. I immediately invested in Apple once I created the account. I currently have 500 shares and the share price has been fluctuating between $182 and $188 within the past week. I only invested to find out how the program works and was amazed by its realisticity.
The history of stock markets or exchanges is long and complex, and dates back before the birth of America. Early records of stock markets go clear back to the 1600’s when it consisted mostly of spice trades and shipping. The stock markets as we know them today are much different of course, and that is because of their vast ability to facilitate business all over the world. The American stock market, which we will be focusing on, was adapted from the English stock market, which during the early years was the biggest of all markets. Not until America won its independence was a stock exchange considered in the new world. Since its inception the American stock exchange has played a vital role in the success of this country, while at the same time also causing some unforeseen and devastating problems for both the businesses involved and the country and world as a whole. An analysis of the stock market throughout history will reveal that the stock market can be dangerous and costly to the country, but is still effective tool for helping businesses to be successful. Before jumping right into it let us first discuss what a stock market or exchange is and what it does for us.
Let’s flash back in time to before our college days. Back to then we had lunch trays filled with rubbery chicken nuggets, stale pizza, and bags of chocolate milk. A backpack stacked with Lisa Frank note books, flexi rulers, and color changing pencils. The times where we thought we wouldn’t make it out alive, but we did. Through all the trials and tribulations school helped build who I am today and shaped my future. From basic functions all the way to life-long lessons that helped shape my character.
Stocks are traded on exchanges, which are places where buyers and sellers meet and decide on a price. A stock exchange can be physical or virtual. In physical an exchange transactions are carried out on a trading floor. On a trading floor there are hundreds, even thousands of computers and just as many traders wildly throwing their arms up, waving, yelling, and signaling to each other. Another type of stock exchange is virtual. They’re composed of a network of computers where trades are made electronically.
After considering the market position I have decided to take a moderate risk approach. I will allocate 40% of my resources to Johnson and Johnson and 30% to Intuit, Inc. The remaining 30% I will hold in cash. Although the saying “Cash is trash,” applies to a bull market, I am still apprehensive as to when this turnaround will occur. For now I will benefit by holding cash, but if the market turns at the end of our two month period as many analysts believe, I will lose out.
Finally, the third phase is where we profited from our investments. Having performed poorly in the equity market, we developed a new strategy of investing. This strategy focused more on the commodity sector rather then the equity sector. Therefore, at the beginning of March we bought contracts in gold, corn, platinum, lumber, and the United States currency. As equities dropped, the prices of commodities increased allowing our lumber, corn, and platinum to make huge gains.
If you arevery busy with your job, children, or other responsibilities, your stock broker will do the work for you (“Investor.gov”). This is very good because the diversity is is what makes your stocks go up.
...ting in Amazon.com might be beneficial because everything that the company offers applies to a mass amount of people. This gives the company a great ability to grow with the times and have their services stay in high demand, this proves true through the almost constant rise of the stock. Facebook might be a good choice to invest in simply because of how popular it is to people using it. The stock has shown a steady increase for a while, and I don’t see a decrease in its popularity happening any time soon, which would make for a good investment. Overall, you can never be sure of the best stocks to invest in because the stock market can change on a dime. However, with using the best available strategies to choose your stocks, and of course with a little bit of luck, having shares in the stock market can be a very financially beneficial decision to anybody who invests.
The stock market game is a great way to learn and understand how stocks work. I ended up learning that going all in and shorting stocks was the quickest way to make money. Unfortunately, it is also the best way to experience the slaughter when stocks go other than what you predict. In the beginning, I did not truly understand how to play the stock game. I was afraid and put clumps of money in different stocks. The cost was hundreds and hundreds of dollars that. Slowly as I tested shorting with Sunedison (SUNE) I began making up the money that I lost. Eventually I ended up shorting and covering every stock I bought. I learned to read the graphs and analyze the news to attempt to predict how the market would turn. I also
As I reach the seemingly boring age of 19, I am able to look back and reflect on how my choices in the past have gotten me to where I am today. One of the most significant decisions I have made in my life was to minimize my friend group. Now, losing friends is something you hear about before you even hit junior high. The common phrase is repeated over and over again, when referring to high school, “You find out who your real friends are.” As a scrawny little freshman, with no sense of reality, I refused to believe that that phrase would ever apply to my life. The end of my sophomore year is when my then, sixteen-year-old self, realized that that overused phrase was more relevant to my life than I wanted it to be. So I did something about it.
When I was in the second grade our teacher signed us all up for the game, giving us a login, and telling us to go to a website and start researching stocks. My first year playing the game I placed 3rd to last in my region, and even further back in the national