Have you ever wondered what it was like to have 500,000 dollars to buy and trade stocks? Sixteen ADM students got that chance on March 7. Students from Del Buchman’s Economy and AP Government classes traveled to Junior Achievement (JA) headquarters in Des Moines. Twenty-nine teams from schools around central Iowa were there to compete in a stock market simulation challenge. The teams had to buy and trade between 26 different stocks. These stocks were created by JA in order to make the simulation easier for the students and also so they can control what happens and different scenarios.

Unlike at some other schools, ADM does not teach stocks. The only knowledge students had was the experience that they had prior to the competition. The competition lasted 60 virtual days, each day was one minute long during the competition. On certain days some special “hot tips” came out to give you some insight on what to buy and what to sell. The room was crazy with people running all over the place trying to get the traders’ attention. Sixty days later, the competition ended. The top two teams got prizes and ADM team 1 finished just outside the top two, settling with third. ADM team 1 was made up of Matthew Dobrzynski, Alec Goos, Kade Overton, and Jacob Schumacher. Starting with $500,000 they finished with $877,012.04. Dowling Catholic finished in 1st place with $1,369,200.07.

“I thought it was a very fun experience that taught me a lot; it was very interesting to watch the stock market fluctuate and it wasn’t very long so we had to act fast,” said Jacob Schumacher, who was part of the third-place team. “In the second half we had more of a strategy, buy low sell high, so we also used the hot tips to our advantage.”

No matter your experience with stock markets, you should consider attending the JA Stock Market exchange in future years. It is a great learning experience that is open to all students.