Anytime students get ice cream cake for their "second breakfast," they're pretty happy.
That's what Bayfield gifted and talented students received for a treat on Tuesday. Members of the class had submitted 30-second videos about what they had learned in the experience, where they invested $100,000 in pretend money and tracked it over the school year. The program is sponsored by the Colorado Council of Economic Education.
Along with winning the award for best-performing stocks in the southern half of the state, one of the videos was chosen as the winner of the contest, although teacher Mary Lynne Herr isn't sure which student team created the actual winner.
To celebrate their big win, Cara Flynt, a economic advisor with Lpl Financial in Durango, brought the ice cream cake and answered questions from the fourth- and fifth-grade students.
The students also discussed with Flynt what they looked for in their top stocks. Deegan Barnes said he wanted companies with returns higher than 2 percent. Nathan Sears said Amazon was one of his top picks.
Flynt also answered the following questions submitted by students:
Why was the stock market created?
The New York Stock Exchange was created in 1792, but similar markets were used by the ancient Egyptians and Greeks, Flynt said. They have long been used for business people to raise money for ther companies and for investors to make money.
What if you run out of money?
Flynt said part of her job is to tell her clients that they can lose their money in the stock market.
"They take a risk," she said. Although advisors don't want it to happen, "some clients won't get their money back."
Is the stock market like gambling?
"Kind of," Flynt said, although she and other advisors try to help their clients make educated decisions to invest in good companies.
She also advises her clients to buy for the long term, she explained. When Apple stock went on the market in 1981, it cost less than $1 a share. Today it sells for $131 a share, and a split in 2014 gave stock holders seven shares for every single one they owned.
What are other investments?
Real estate, bonds, futures and options, or mutual funds, which she described as "baskets of stocks." They tend to be less risky than single stocks.
What do you earn?
Flynt hedged a bit on this, saying that beginning employees in her field make about $25,000 annually, and top advisors on Wall Street can earn a half million or more annually.
Can we buy stocks?
Children 18 and under can have accounts set up by their parents, Flynt said.
Students in the class who created videos were Deegan Barnes, Kyra Caselles, Emily Deming, Kori Jenkins, Lainey Kopf, Donald Ledvina, Max Meyers, Andy Monger, Madison Poulton, Kassidy Randolph, Chloe Sarnow, Alexander Sears, Nathan Sears, Bailey Smith, Aidyn Abdallah-Boehm, Keyton Cugnini, Kobe Prior, Macey Moore
The video entries can be viewed on the Bayfield Challenge Program You Tube Channel, available at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3_CNzcl64kmeVdBlLq2bSA
