Lawton Constitution: Stock talk: Cole wisely invests time with students learning to master market
Lawton Constitution - Malinda Rust
Fourth District U.S. Rep. Tom Cole paid a visit to Lawton’s Eisenhower High School Tuesday morning, visiting with students he believes are destined for great things.
Cole met with senior Rafael Lopez, who recently received a congressional nomination and appointment to the U.S. Military Academy from Cole’s office, but he spent much of his time talking to a group of Eisenhower students who will, in essence, be representing him during the Capitol Hill Challenge for the next 14 weeks.
Each year for nearly a decade, Laurie Schoening, a Great Plains Technology Center teacher who leads a Project Lead the Way principles of engineering class at Eisenhower High School, has participated in the Stock Market Game. Students in each hour are given $100,000 to “invest” in the stock market in hopes of turning the highest profit. This year Shoening’s fifthhour team managed its stocks and investments so well it generated more gross return than any other high school team in the state.
Important lessons in life
Beginning next Monday, it will start again on the Capitol Hill Challenge (CHC), which requires student teams to pair with a congressional representative in their district. The top 10 CHC teams will win a trip to Washington, D.C., to meet their members of Congress and be recognized at an awards reception on Capitol Hill.
“It’s a life skill, so even though this is technically a pre-engineering class, I feel it’s important for students to know how to plan and save for their futures,” Schoening said. “We talk about the strategies of investing, talk about what is going on in the markets— chocolate sales at Halloween — and I provide a bit of information at the beginning, like not putting all your eggs in one basket and investing as much as possible from the start ... But that’s it. They manage and watch their stocks from that point on by themselves.”
Cole, who said he’s more of a “buy and hold kind of guy,” said he was impressed to learn how Spencer Brown and Alex Young explained the team’s strategy for investing. The two said they opted to borrow an additional $50,000 to supplement their initial investment, consulted with parents about industries and researched the risk and rewards associated with stocks before buying.
Market monitored
Brown said the team chose to purchase only 100 stocks in each industry in order to free its hands to sell poorly performing stocks.
From advice from their parents, the team invested in defense and contracting companies, like Lockheed Martin and Northop Grumman. The team also purchased shares in Disney—anticipating fall break vacations would drive revenue — Netflix and Tyson chicken.
“I mean, who doesn’t love Tyson chicken?” Brown said.
The portfolio didn’t grow much in the first week, but by the second week the team had broken into the top five in the state. For the last month of the competition, the students were neck and neck with a team from Putnam City, beating it by roughly $130.
Overall, the Eisenhower team returned $118,902.23 on its initial investment.
Cole left impressed
Cole said the work proved how important a young set of eyes can be in recognizing market trends and investing wisely. The competition also proves, Cole said, that the country’s future is much brighter with students like Schoening’s in it.
“I’m out visiting the schools and seeing young people, and I’m constantly seeing that they are smarter, work harder and are much more responsible than those in my generation,” Cole said. “I’m very optimistic about the future of this country.”
Other teams from area schools also placed in the top regional slots. Two fourth- through eighth-grade classes from Indiahoma and one from Walters placed first, second and third in the region, while separate teams from Eisenhower High School swept all three places for the Region 2’s high school division.
The next phase of the competition ends May 6, and the awards ceremony in Washington is scheduled for June 14-16. The Oklahoma Stock Market Game is sponsored by the Oklahoma Council on Economic Education.
Online: Lawton Constitution