This week at Our Lady of the Lakes, our Economics students learned how to invest a fictitious $10,000 in a class project. Students were tasked with creating a savings plan for a “family” by setting up a savings and investment plan that not only included an emergency fund but also included stocks and ETFs traded on the New York Stock Exchange. Students became “owners” of corporations by researching and investing in stocks. As they began searching, they realized that it was difficult to know which stocks would yield them capital gains in the future. They investigated trends in the stock prices over time to make their selections, but leaned toward purchases of companies they were familiar with. One group purchased stock in Coca-Cola because “we all like Coke.”

Students will revisit the NYSE website on their iPads and check their stock prices later in the semester.  They will then use Google Sheets to calculate the interest on their savings as well as the capital gains (or losses) on the sale of their stock.