Wildwood Middle team picks
stock market winners

Four Wildwood Middle School kids admitted they knew nothing about investing when last fall's statewide Stock Market Game competition started. But, it turned out they did pick good stocks.

Drew Braet, Torie Goode, Nick Jacobs and Allie Truex are 8th graders in teacher Karen Schulz's accelerated Strechers class. They formed one of 10 four-member teams from Ms. Schultz's classes who competed in the investment competition.

When the game ended last month, Drew, Torie, Nick and Allie had the best investment gain of all teams in the St. Louis area. Each team got an imaginary $100,000 and tried to earn the most money over a 10-week period by investing in company stocks.

The Wildwood teams competed against hundreds of similar school teams in Missouri.

At the end of the contest period, the Wildwood team's stock portfolio was valued at $115, 382.39. That's a gain of over 15% in just 10 weeks.

By contrast, stocks in the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained value at less than 5.5%.

About his prior stock market knowledge, 14-year-old Drew Braet said, "Basically I didn't know anything about the market in the beginning." The other three concurred.

But, after finishing well, three of the four members said they plan to be stock market investors when they get older. The lone holdout was 13-year-old Allie Truex, who said, "It's too risky for me."

The kids invested their imaginary money in six stocks, Panera Bread, Underarmor, Apple Computer, Sears Holding, American Eagle, Yahoo and Boeing.

Their portfolio at the start of the competition included just three stocks: Panera, Underarmor and Apple. During the 10 weeks, they sold Panera and then added Sears, American Eagle, Yahoo and Boeing.

Significantly, most of their stocks were either of well-known companies or made products that the kids used. For instance, Underarmor and American Eagle are clothing companies that sell to young people.

Panera is the parent company of the St. Louis Bread Co. restaurants.

Thirteen-year-old Nick Jacobs said about 60% of the team's overall profit came in one stock, Underarmor. Nick was wearing Underarmor clothing during the interview for this article. " I also have American Eagle clothes," he said.

While Underarmor was the big winner for the team, the kids proudly pointed out that all of their stock picks ended up above their purchase price.

One thing that helped was the selling of Panera stock in the middle of the contest period.

Allie Truex said, "Torie saw something on the Internet that predicted that Panera's stock was going to take a dip. We sold the stock the next day, just before it did decline."

Torie said, "Some teams had Panera stock and didn't sell. They ended with a big loss."

Each kid on the winning team started out researching two or three stocks. The research included checking for current and past stock performance, analysts' predictions for the future and a study of what the company made or did.

Then, the whole team got together to make the final choices. They kept checking on their stocks each week. Their purchase of American Eagle stock was made in the last week of the game.

The American Eagle and Apple Computer purchases were timed closer to the holiday season. That's because the kids thought the company stock price would be helped by the volume of Christmas sales and by "buzz" from new product announcements.

For instance, Apple announced its new "mini-IPod" models late in 2006.

In some cases, the team didn't buy stock in a company even though one of the members had experience with the firm. For instance, Nick Jacobs said he'd made over 30 buys on Ebay including "a lot of baseball cards and an autograph by Albert Pujols."

But, after his research report on Ebay, the team decided not to buy that stock.

Torie Goode said her Wildwood Middle School team was ranked as high as 3rd in the state part way through the competition period. "We lost headway late in the game," she said. But the Wildwood team still was the best in the St. Louis area.

The top two teams in Missouri during the fall version of the Stock Market Game were from western Missouri. The overall winner was a team from Harrisonville High School with a final portfolio value of $132,367.92.

In 2nd place was a team from Smithton Middle School with a $128,611.29 value.

(For complete fall listings, visit www.umkc.edu/mcee.)