More than 32,000 students from 1,800 Australian secondary schools participated in the two ASX Schools Sharemarket Games in 2007. Trophies and prize money were presented to the winning students at an awards ceremony in Sydney today.
Game 1 of the Schools Game was played from 23 April to 18 June and Game 2 from 13 September to 7 November this year. ASX also conducted one game open to the general public in 2007. Participants were provided with a hypothetical $50,000 to create their own share portfolio and experience what it is like to invest in the sharemarket over a 10-week period. Participation was free. The Games simulate real trading using live share prices.
The player with the highest portfolio value at the end of each Game is declared the winner and shares in a prize pool valued at over $25,000 per game. ASX Managing Director and CEO Robert Elstone remarked on the breadth of participation in the Schools Game, noting that the top-three national placegetters in Game 2 were students in years 7 and 9 from schools in Melbourne, Brisbane and Sydney.
In his address to students, teachers, parents and Games sponsors, Mr Elstone said that market volatility during the period of the Game had provided a valuable lesson, enabling "the ASX Sharemarket Game to teach people about market risk, about how individual companies perform differently and about the value of diversification." The strong performance of resource stocks proved popular with winners, and most bought and held shares preferring to ride out short-term dips.
Music and DVD retailers proved to be popular stock picks among many of the Games’ leaders demonstrating an ‘invest in what you know’ principle. The Schools Sharemarket Games were sponsored by Citi and Bond University. The Public Game was sponsored by Westpac Broking. -- www.asx.com.au
Comment and add to the story without registration, but keep the comments meaningful please. Links are not accepted.
Comments
#1 That's the way to go for Australia!
I think this activity to bring school kids already at an early stage into playing on the stock market is the right thing for Australia to do.
All this "going to university" and "learning to actually produce something" is all unnecessary fluff. It is much better for the economy if every Australian invests money on the stock markets and leave the production to the rest of the world.
If we gamble hard enough in this country, we will be able to afford the things from China!
And if not, we can still sell our coal.