Classroom tycoons

SANFORD, May 11, 2008 (Sanford Herald - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) -- -- Life is a lot like playing the stock market, according to Lee County High School senior Rachel Stone: you make the most informed decisions you can, but it's impossible to predict how it'll turn out.

"The stock market is all risk and reward, like life," Stone said. "It's a gamble. It's all a roller coaster."

And Stone would know -- she's a member of Carol Smith's principles of business class, which has played the Stock Market Game every year for the past five years. Participating students across the state divide into teams of three and pick stocks or mutual funds to "invest" in for 10 weeks. Whoever has the most money at the end of that

ime wins. This year, one of Smith's teams placed third in the region, winning junior Lilliam Matos-Franco, senior Brad Coats and sophomore Matthew Crowley trophies and a trip to Greensboro for the N.C.

Council on Economic Education awards banquet.

"I learned that you can't just go forward and grab what you want -- you have to do research," Coats said.

"And even then, the stock market is unpredictable."

Coats and his teammates had that unpredictability demonstrated to them first-hand: theywere first in the state for a week, then plummetted to seventh, rising back to third regionally at the last minute. The entry fees for Smith's class are sponsored by Matt Jackson and the First Bank of Sanford.

Stone is the state winner of the Investwrite Essay contest, Smith's first student ever to place in the companion contest that the class enters every year. Her essay weighed the benefits of two different kinds of stocks, and evaluated her own investment "personality."

"I like to be secure and have a little bit of a cushion- I don't like to be in the negative," Stone said.

Smith teaches students to consider supply and demand, current events, the economy andholidays when they pick their stocks; this year was particularly interesting, she said, because of the recession, the fuel crisis and the war in Iraq.

Most students start with names they know, Smith said -- athletic and clothing lines Nike and Abercrombie and Fitch -- and branch out from there as they do more research. They have to figure in the broker's commission, and maintain a balance to make sure they don't over-buy.

The goal is to "invest" while the stock is up, but not too high, then sell before it plummets.

"They always ask me which stocks to pick, and I always say, ?If I knew that I would be an investor and not a teacher,'" Smith said.

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