The Stock Market Game
My Reflection by Sam Linker
Overall Gain/Loss
At the end of the game, I lost 27,679.80 dollars
Final Ranking
I ended up in 24th place at the end of the game
Stock Purchase Strategy
I usually bought large amounts of stock depending on the price in order to hopefully sell all my shares in the future for a large profit. My strategy was to find low stocks or stocks that fell in hopes for them to increase in price. Also, I based my purchases on how well known the brands are even if the stock price was expensive. Because of the large market share of the brand name companies, I expected to gain some or if they dropped, they wouldn't drop by a large amount. I bought stock depending on the time of the year and future products being release such as large retail stores and Disney.
Stock Selling Strategy
I had a poor selling strategy because I was worried about losing more money and sold my stocks early. So, on many stocks I took a loss because I did not hold onto them long enough to see if they could go back up. On the ones that I sold that did make me money, I ended up selling too late. I had a chance to sell for hundreds of more dollars than I did, but I decided to hold on in hopes for a larger increase. As a result, the stocks fell over time and I was forced to sell for a lower profit before they started losing me money.
Biggest Money Maker
Finish Line's stock made me the most money at a total profit of 500 dollars.
Biggest Money Loser
Nordstrom's stock lost me the most money because they unexpectedly dropped a clothing line that caused the stock to plummet. It ended up losing me 6,225 dollars.
Trends
I noticed how stocks tend react differently to different holidays and times of the year. Also, since the market is so predictable some stocks can go from making money to losing money. Because of that effect, it was really difficult to identify a certain trend because each of my stocks reacted differently. However, most stocks that were trending down when I bought them tend to stay down and not increase by a large amount
Resources Used
My main resource was Marketwatch.com. I used the site to help me identify the trends of stocks over the past couple of months and how they performed in order to purchase stock. I also used the website to see if I should hold or sell any stock that I held that was doing poorly or profiting. I also used Google and Yahoo finance for similar purposes to help identify trends that span over months and if the future price of the stock goes up or down.
What Did I Learn?
I learned that the stock market is very hard to predict and takes large amounts of research in order to accurately predict the price of stocks. I was not good at the predicting part because I did not put in enormous amounts of research into each stock I bought. I bought based on trends which might be one of the least reliable ways to predict a stock's future price. Overall, I learned a lot about all the hard work that goes into properly managing the stock market in order to maximize the stock market, and based off of my experience these past couple of months, I may try to avoid investing large amounts of my future earnings into the stock market.