Lincoln students fare well in JA Stock Market Challenge

What happens to the stock price when a CEO is fired? How does the announcement of a new product impact a company’s market price? Does it help to have a team involved in developing investment strategy?

Hundreds of Nebraska high school students learned these and many other valuable lessons as they prepared for and participated in the Junior Achievement of Lincoln Stock Market Challenge in April.

“The stock market is important for students to understand how the investing world works,” said Logan Ryan, business educator and coach at Lincoln Lutheran High School. “Identifying factors that could impact long-term investments are critical, especially when you consider how many individuals have money tied up in the stock market.”

Lincoln Lutheran had 16 students participating in the event, which was hosted at Pinnacle Bank Arena. One of the school’s teams of four finished first by doubling its hypothetical initial investment of $1 million.

“I can’t believe how this event has grown in the nine years we’ve hosted it,” noted Toni Rupe, president of JA Lincoln. “We started with just 18 schools and about 200 students in 2015. This year, we had 27 schools and more than 500 students in person and another 100 online.”

The JA Lincoln Stock Market Challenge began when the organization hired the creator of a software-based system to help students learn. This year, the event featured a computerized simulation that was produced by JA International. Student teams buy and sell imaginary stocks over a period of one hour, and they’re updated on information that can impact the market throughout that time. The 60-minute event simulates 60 days on the stock market.

“I feel our students gained experience in the stock market,” said Jereme Jones, business teacher with Hampton High School in Hamilton County, just east of Aurora. “Most of all, I think it helped both of the young ladies who made the trip to Lincoln gain confidence in themselves. I think it’s important to give students an introduction to the stock market, because most of them will probably have their retirement tied to the market.”

The team from Hampton finished second in the overall challenge.

JA Lincoln’s Stock Market Challenge was presented by Certified Financial Analyst (CFA) of Nebraska and is one of the largest events of its kind in the nation. The list of sponsoring organizations and companies includes some of Nebraska’s leaders such as Union Bank & Trust, D.A. Davidson, Tasty Good Toffee, Nelnet, Lincoln Federal Savings Bank and Q2.

Students from as far away as Kearney participated in person, with a number from schools scattered across the eastern part of Nebraska connecting to the event online.

“Our mission is to empower young people to own their economic success by leveraging Lincoln’s amazing community and corporate volunteers to facilitate lessons in financial literacy, career success and entrepreneurship,” said Rupe. “We serve K-12 students in all of Lincoln’s public and private schools.”

More than 30 volunteers helped run the event, including many staff members from companies such as Fiserv and Midlands Financial. Eric Cruise of KPMG rang the opening bell and served as the event’s emcee.

“We sent 20 students from our various business-related classes,” said Josh Hinrichs, FBLA adviser and business teacher at Lincoln Southwest High School. “The stock market has become so much easier for people to access. I even know some high school students who invest on their own using their phones. Too many people don’t have a good understanding of how it works, so it’s important for students to learn about stocks.”

The Southwest team came in third out of the nearly 130 teams participating.

“We’re thrilled that our top three teams get to participate in the online JA USA Stock Market Challenge on May 16,” said Tyson Jenkins, vice president of Programs and Development for JA Lincoln. “Our top two teams from Lincoln Lutheran and Hampton also were awarded scholarships to the UNL College of Business. The winning team in the JA USA event will get an all-expense paid trip to the JA Student Leadership Summit in Washington in June. I think our students have a real opportunity to win.”

JA Lincoln is one of the largest Junior Achievement operations in the country and recently expanded to serve nearly all of Nebraska’s schools except those in the Omaha metro area. The organization provides lessons taught by volunteers in person or virtually in classrooms across the state.