Young stock pickers win big

Kuleana Educational Academy finished first place in the state in the Hawaii Council on Economic Education’s Fall 2017 Hawaii Stock Market Simulation.

Hundreds of teams from across all the islands competed in a stock market game that lasted three months. The competition began on Sept. 18 and ended on Nov. 17. Every team in the state was given $100,000 of “fake” money to spend on stocks, bonds and mutual funds. Each division has specific rules about the allocations for each. Over the three months, the Kuleana students researched the companies and made predictions about their stocks.

They bought and sold their stocks and bonds based on that information. The winners were determined by the percent of money that each team made at the end of the three months. The winning Kuleana team made a total of $14,383 over three months, a 14.38 percent return on their investment!

The winning Kuleana team was comprised of Titus Hamm and Grant Wolcott, both sixth-grade students at the Kailua-Kona private school. Their instructor was Megan Hodge, who teaches math, science, music and electives at the school.

Their winning team made some great investments with Netflix, Apple and Costco, which helped lead to their big victory. Each member of the team won a gift card of their choosing and both boys chose an Amazon gift card as their big prize.