THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, June 5, 1996 TAG: 9606050346
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JON GLASS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: 75 lines
File this one under investments you wish you made: Four Ruffner Middle School students, competing in a stock market game with $100,000 of imaginary money, purchased about 20,000 shares of stock in a northern Virginia communications company.
Ten weeks later, the sixth- and seventh-graders were rolling in the dough, with a cool $125,532 profit.
With their Midas touch, the stock portfolio bulled ahead to win the game, generating the third-highest profit ever recorded by the contest's state sponsor, the Virginia Council on Economic Education at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond. Their performance bested about 21,000 elementary, middle and high school students across Virginia who played.
On Tuesday, the Ruffner high-rollers were putting on the Ritz.
The students - seventh-grader Curtis Perry, 13, and sixth-graders Mark Watson, 12, Chad Eichelberger, 12, and Zachary Waldren, 11 - got a ride in a white stretch limousine, toured a downtown financial investment company to see how stocks are bought and sold in the ``real'' world, and dined at the exclusive Town Point Club in the World Trade Center.
The students said they had never ridden in a limo, complete with TV, VCR and oh-so-luxurious leather seats.
``No one brought any videotapes,'' quipped Chad, when the students had settled in.
Curtis brought a camera to capture the moment.
``Then I can let people know I have been places,'' Curtis said.
About 2,000 students in the Hampton Roads region participated in the Stock Market Game, which is sponsored locally by the Center for Economic Education at Old Dominion University, Wheat First Butcher Singer Securities and The Virginian-Pilot.
During the spring contest, students were free to buy and sell stocks traded on Wall Street using the hypothetical $100,000.
``At one time, they thought the government controlled the stock market; most of them had no idea how it worked,'' said Brad Dalton, a Ruffner government and economics teacher who advised the winning team.
The four Ruffner students settled on the stock of FastComm Communications, a Sterling, Va., company that specializes in communications technology, including servers and routers for Internet access. They bought the stock for about $5 a share - but they knew through their research that it had sold for as much as $19. They were banking on the price rising.
``We thought we'd make money off of it, because they sell stuff for the Internet, and people like the Internet,'' Curtis said.
``Internet is a magic word,'' Dalton said.
Dalton's students have finished in the Top 10 since he's been involved in the contest, the type of consistent performance investors like to see.
His advice: pick stocks of low value, preferably under $10, so that more can be purchased for the dollar; and listen for ``positive news'' that might affect the price of stock in a particular segment of the economy.
Robert Thorndike, vice president of Wheat First Butcher Singer, said the profit earned by the students - equal to an annual return of 650 percent - is unusual.
``They want to win, and it's not real money, so they're willing to take more risks,'' Thorndike said. ``For the normal investor, those risks are almost too much to bear.''
For winning, Thorndike's company gave the students $500 to invest.
Wall Street, watch out.
``It would be a good career,'' Chad said. ``It's kind of hard to learn, but we won't be on the street, and we won't be poor.'' ILLUSTRATION: CANDICE C. CUSIC photos
The Virginian-Pilot
Curtis Perry, 13, above right, exits the limousine at the Norfolk
office of Wheat First Butcher Singer Securities on Tuesday to see
how stocks are bought and sold in the ``real'' world. Below, from
left, are Mark Watson, Zachary Waldren (hidden), Perry, and Chad
Eichelberger. The Ruffner Middle School students dined at the Town
Point Club in the World Trade Center. by CNB