Take Stock in Kentucky PowerPoint

Take Stock in Kentucky TM

Getting Started, Graves County Middle School Style

What is “Take Stock in Kentucky?”

An internet simulation stock market game competition that focuses on Kentucky’s economy.

What is the purpose of the game? To explore the potential for investing within

one’s own state thereby gaining an appreciation for Kentucky business and economic growth.

To learn more about Kentucky geography, business, economics, and investments.

Why should I want to play? It’s fun! The first place team in the state will win

$300 cash! 2nd place = $200 3rd place = $100 First place team in region receives an “I

took Stock in Kentucky…and Won!” t-shirt for each team member

Anything else? There’s also a PowerPoint competition And a national InvestWrite essay

competition And each one carries prizes separate from

the stock market competition! Click on the hyperlinks above for more

information

What will I learn? What the stock market is and how it works The difference between private and public

corporations Economic concepts like profit, services, supply,

demand, opportunity cost, scarcity, economic systems, and more

How to make good financial decisions based on market research

How to make money (and lose it!) in a market economy

How does it work? Working as a team, students will develop a stock

portfolio (collection of stocks owned) starting with $100,000 imaginary cash by investing in local businesses (approximately 200 publicly-held companies doing business across the state of Kentucky) using online trading.

Each team will use a login number and password supplied by their teacher to access their portfolio via the Internet.

How do we get started? First, you have to take a pretest to see what

you already know about economics. Click on the following link then follow the

directions on the next PowerPoint slide. http://www.kcee.org/prepost/students.jsp

Pretest Directions1. Grade level– select “Middle”2. Teacher Name – select your teacher’s name

(Willis or Todd)3. Type in your class password (your teacher will

give this to you)4. Select your class name (Willis GCMS, etc.)5. Select your name6. Take the Take Stock in Kentucky—middle test7. Continue with this PowerPoint when you are

finished

Take Stock in Kentucky list The list of stocks you are allowed to work with is

available at the following link. Your teacher may also have given each team a

paper copy of this list You may buy ONLY the stocks on this list If you accidentally buy a stock not on the list, you

MUST cancel the transaction BEFORE you leave school THAT DAY!

Kentucky Stock List Excel Doc Link

Logging on to your Portfolio Go to www.stockmarketgame.org (You may want to open a

separate browser window so that you can continue to look at the instructions on this PowerPoint as you check out your portfolio screen.)

Carefully enter your team’s username and password as given to you by your teacher.

The logins are case sensitive (that is, capital letters matter!) Guard your passwords carefully so that no one may make

trades using your portfolio without your knowledge.

Portfolio Screen Features Once you arrive at your portfolio, spend some time playing

around with the links provided. At the top of each of the following pages is a Help link

(beside the yellow question mark) that provides information about the features of that page.

The Account Summary link shows you the total equity in your portfolio (the amount of money that it is worth).

The Investor Research link gives you access to stock quotes and charts when you enter the “ticker symbol” of the stock you are interested in. (On the Kentucky Stock List, the all caps SYM column is a list of ticker symbols for stocks you may buy.) Use the drop down menu beside “quote summary” to view charts.

You will buy and sell your stocks on the Enter a Trade page. You will need the ticker symbol of the stock you are interested in. You will also enter the number of shares you wish to buy.

See the Help link for information about market price, limits, short sells, etc.

Note: You do not have to buy stocks today! You may buy stocks if you like, but be careful and do your research first. You want to look for companies that you believe will grow over the next few weeks. (Remember factors that will affect the economy such as the upcoming holiday season, recent natural disasters, etc.)

Rules of the Game

1. You start with $100,000 equity (cash value) in your portfolio. You earn 5% interest on positive cash balances. You pay 7% interest on negative cash balances (you may spend more than you have, thus “borrowing” money against the equity in your portfolio.)

2. You may only trade stocks listed on the Kentucky Stock List. You may not trade mutual funds. If you accidentally buy a stock not on the list, the transaction must be cancelled before you leave school that day. Otherwise, you must sell it at a loss before the game ends or you will be disqualified from winning prizes.

3. Maximum Equity Rule: Teams can invest no more than 30% of their total equity on any one stock. This is to encourage diversification of stock portfolio, which is a wiser investment practice for long-term investing.

4. Five Stock Minimum Rule: Teams are required to purchase or short sell at least 5 stocks throughout the competition. However, you do not have to hold all 5 at the same time, nor do you have to hold at least 5 all the time. At some time during the game, each team must have bought at least 5 different stocks.

5. All End of Day Game transactions are priced at market daily closing prices. These prices can be found in the next day’s newspaper or by using price quote facilities of the Stock Market Game.

6. All buy orders must be a minimum of 100 shares of a stock. However, you may sell fewer than 100 shares of a stock.

7. SMG does not permit buying stocks that trade below $5 per share. (These “penny stocks” are very risky investments.)

8. You cannot buy more stock than the equity of your portfolio will back up. Such trades will be rejected.

9. A 2% broker fee is charged for all transactions. For example, if you buy 100 shares of stock at $10 per share, you must pay 2% of $1000 or $20.

10. Teams should only trade stocks during school hours. All buying and selling decisions should be agreed upon by team members.

11. Rankings will be updated every evening.

Note: The official version of game rules is available from a link on the official portfolio login screen.

Links to Take Stock in Kentucky information Helpful links to Take Stock in Kentucky can

be found on Mrs. Willis’s website (you may use this hyperlink or click through the GCMS website for access.)

Take Stock in Kentucky is copyrighted by the Kentucky Council on Economic Education. All rules and information provided on this PowerPoint come from the Kentucky Council on Economic Education.