Date: Fri 12-Jun-1998

Publication: Bee

Author: MICHEL

Quick Words:

stock-market-game-schools

Full Text:

They Made A Killing On The Street

(with cut)

BY MICHELE HOGAN

If you want to get rich quick, think about asking a sixth grader at Newtown

Middle School to manage your money.

A group of sixth graders made over 50 percent return on investment in ten

weeks.

They started with a theoretical $100,000, and ten weeks later they had

accumulated $154,964 worth of stock.

This placed them eighth in the statewide competition against 2,200 teams

(including high school and adult teams).

This put them first among the 655 teams who participated in the branch of this

competition administered by The Connecticut Post .

Their advice to investors? "Buy, buy, buy!" Matt Dorinsky said "Really, that

was what we did. We borrowed about $20,000 and gained."

Matt continued "Watch the stock for a week. If it's steadily going up, put it

all in it. Sell your house. Use that money too. Then you can buy a bigger

mansion after."

Robby Liu agreed wholeheartedly. He said "Use all of it. Get greedy. Borrow

more! You have to spend your money to make money."

Conceding that luck could have played a part in their success, Dan McIlrath

showed how a they turned a lucky mistake into an advantage. He said that "at

first we over-bought by mistake, but it went up, so we kept it."

NMS math teacher, Becky Sasso, who encouraged the kids to participate in this

program, was thrilled with the results. Besides making pretend money, students

learned how to think critically about a portfolio and the stock market page in

the newspaper. They also see a real reason to learn math.

Robby only has one regret. He said "I wish we'd get to keep the money we won."