Student Investors Speculate to Accumulate!
25/11/2011
Veronica Tomciac and Momodou Mbye
Four teams of Business students from the Level 3 Diploma at the College's Crawley campus are hoping their £100K investments will pay dividends, as they compete against over 6,700 other teams from schools and colleges up and down the country in the Institute of Financial Services (IFS) Student Investor Challenge.
The challenge opened for business on 31 October, and so far trading has been brisk! Teams from all over the UK have entered the challenge, which invites teams of four students aged 14-19 to invest a virtual £100,000 in stocks and shares of their choice, then manage their portfolio to ensure maximum profit. The four teams from Central Sussex College: Button Chasers; DJ Doubles; Kinetic Traders; and Team Azeez were invited to enter the competition by Business Lecturer Claire Nicholls, and have quickly become hooked with tracking their progress on the website, which shows profits and losses in real-time. The top prize of an all-expenses-paid trip to New York for the winning team has also proved a great motivator!
Having signed up for the challenge in mid-November, the groups have been a little disappointed with their investments so far, as the crisis in the Eurozone has seen share-prices tumble across the various sectors. However, they remain optimistic that things will pick up again before the competition closes in February 2012. Eighteen year old Momodou Mybe, who lives in Crawley, dreams of becoming an investor for real one day. He represents 'Kinetic Traders', who are currently top of the four groups from the College, and are sitting 2,108th nationally. He said: "We're not worried at this stage, as the value of everyone's shares has gone down, apart from a lucky few. My team are looking to snap up bargains, and we are buying cheap shares in areas with good potential growth, so hope to see profits increase soon."
Team mate Nikhil Patel, 17 said: "For us, one of the main areas we have been investing in is in banks, and we have purchased quite a lot of shares in Barclay's. We are also watching the Asian market, as there is plenty of growth there as the European and US markets struggle."
Veronica Tomciac, who is 18 and also lives in Crawley, represents another of the teams, 'Button Chasers'. She says: "There are so many things to consider when investing in a company! We have been looking at profit margins, financial history, and whether a company has any bad debt, as well as the actual share price - it's very hard to predict what's going to happen!" She continues: "The project has been so interesting that we are all watching the news much more, and paying more attention to current affairs - I have even started checking the stock market index on my iPhone!"
Before entering the challenge, Business students from Levels 1 - 3 took a trip to the Bank of England, in the City of London and also went to Canary Wharf. The talk given by staff at the Bank of England Museum gives students an idea of the Bank's role in supporting the Global Economy.
Tutor Claire Nicholls said: "Many of our students have never seen the City on a working day. By walking around Canary Wharf students are often inspired to 'aspire'. As the teams start to take the competition seriously I can see the tremendous learning opportunity that this competition gives. I will cautiously start packing my case for New York in February when the competition draws to a close!"
The league position of the Central Sussex Teams can be checked on www.studentinvestor.org
