Westin Fox and Jon Ledford (not shown) are the big winners in the Stock Market Game. (Thomas E. Witte photo) | ZOOM |

        The Stock Market Game is over, and Westin Fox and Jon Ledford are the big winners.

        The Springboro High School students turned $100,000 into $145,009 in just 10 weeks — but they don't recommend trying this at home.

        “If you have the money, volatility pays off,” Westin, a sophomore, said. “But it's a lot safer to diversify.”

        Westin and Jon didn't play the game so safe, however. After all, it was just play money and just a 10-week game. Still, as statewide winners, they'll get a very real $125 in prize money.

        Coordinated in Ohio by the Economics Center for Education & Research at the University of Cincinnati, the Stock Market Game is a decades-old program of the Securities Industry Foundation for Economic Education.

LESSONS FROM THE CONTEST

Even though the Stock Market Game is a 10-week simulated exercise, students across Southwest Ohio are taking away some long-term, very real lessons from the game.     In their own words:     “The stock market can be very unpredictable — you can be in first place one week and lose all of your money the next day.” — Bryan Stubbs, Waynesville High School     “(The game) reminds me about life — it”s unstable and likes to throw you into many different and difficult situations.” — Jeff Styers, Waynesville High School     “Don”t buy or invest into stocks unless you know what you are doing. People jump in and think it is easy to make money, and lose their life savings.” — Evan Keller, Waynesville High School     “You have to know when to call it quits.” — Joe Murphy, Springboro High School     “Never be too greedy. ... Your greed can get the best of you.”     — Evan Weiss, Springboro High School     “I have a lot more respect for professional brokers. We got lucky with a few of our transactions, but I would not have taken the gamble if it were my own money.” — Jon Mudronja, Sycamore High School     “Most people in my class had a more aggressive strategy. ... I liked that my buy-and-hold strategy worked well for me even though many people thought I was not being aggressive enough for a 10-week period.”     — Josh Dooley, Madeira Jr./Sr. High School     “The stock market is a money business that takes time and patience. ... Communication was a key ingredient in our team”s success.” — David Mukasa, Colerain High School     “Before I played this game I knew absolutely nothing about the stock market. I didn”t care to know anything. Now, it is a little more interesting to me.” — Carrie Jessup, Colerain High School     “I learned you can make thousands overnight. Small companies can make a lot of money. It”s pretty nifty.” — Tom Schweitzer, Colerain High School     “If you plan on investing, you should research the company”s past year”s performance to see how they did.” — Katie Schmidt, Colerain     “Colerain won the school composite scores probably because of the good amount of research the kids did before they chose their investments. It takes a bit of time and coordination but it appears to have paid off for many of Colerain”s teams.” — Jim Vanatsky, Colerain teacher

        On one level, it's just a fantasy competition to see which team can make the most money in simulated investments over 10 weeks.

        On another, it's a valuable learning experience about how the stock markets and American economy work.

        In the past 10 weeks, students on 380 teams across Southwest Ohio have researched stocks, built portfolios, bought on margin and even sold short.

        In the rocky Wall Street environment, many teams made a small amount of money even after paying 2 percent commissions. But most lost.

        Westin and Jon earned their 45 percent gain by borrowing on margin and spending almost $200,000 on one stock, Calpine Corp., a San Jose, Calif.-based power-generation company.

        After only a few weeks, the stock price doubled, and Westin and Jon sold to lock in their profit. After holding cash for six weeks, their early gains made them the first-place winners of the Stock Market Game, beating more than 380 other high school teams in Greater Cincinnati.

        To satisfy a diversity requirement in the game's rules, Westin and Jon bought four more low-priced stocks in the game's 10th week.

        But Westin doesn't believe his team skirted the spirit of the game, which requires teams to have held five stocks at some point during the game's 10 weeks, because the strategy could horribly backfire.

        Westin actually played on two teams during this round of the Stock Market Game because he is enrolled in two of Rick Creager's business classes. He points to his other team's results: using the same strategy, but buying a stock that fell by half and finishing the 10 weeks with $46,009, in 374th place.

        “It's just the risk you take, it could also plummet, as with my other team,” Westin said.

        And that also taught him that Stock Market Game investing is not smart real-life investing.

        “You shouldn't have done what I did for the long term,” he said. “Don't put all your eggs in one basket.”
       

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