Paul Verbansky’s Economics classes followed stack market fluctuations from September 21 to October 19 as part of a month-long economics project.

2nd period and 5th period teams were pitted against each other, as well as the teams within their own classes. The goal of the project was to make the most “wise” investments to earn the most cash. Each team began with $1,000,000 of simulated funds, which was represented by numbers on a cash ledger.

Verbansky believes it is important to spread awareness of the stock market’s influence on the economy. “Stock market is a global market place and so it has really become an important part in financial decision making processes,” he said. “Regardless if you are an average American family, or wealthy business man, and even if you don’t invest a single cent in stocks, you should still understand how the stock market works.”

“At the end of the stock market stimulation I’d say , basically, don’t be afraid of investing their money, however invest wisely, and to be aware the greater the reward there’s great risk with that,” said Verbansky.

“We learned about the different aspects of the stock market as well as the variety of stocks out there, and we kind of learned along the way how to strategies which ones to buy and which ones to sell, a short sale, and then we also learned how to do the net worth calculations, which is very stressful,” said senior Michelle Kwak.

Students were asked to make brochures about their particular investments and explain their team’s particular strategy. The brochure was called the Stock Prospectus. Within their brochures students were tasked with building a company profile, including its history in finance.

Kwak felt the project was worthwhile, though calculations proved difficult. “I like the project because I thought it was a good learning tool and it helped us learn how the stock market is operated, but I would say it was stressful in that we had to calculate it manually with calculators,” she explained.