| Investing in youth
Virginia Business
July 2004
When Collin Conrad speaks, people listen.
Well, at least the people at the Foundation for Investor
Education. Officials so liked what this eighth-grader
from Lynchburg’s Brookville Middle School had
to say about the economic factors impacting the stock
price of McDonald’s that they awarded him the
top prize for his age group in the recent InvestWrite
contest.
The essay competition rates students
on their critical thinking abilities and their understanding
of the stock market. For his part, Collin received a
new laptop computer, a $1,000 savings bond and a trip
(with his parents) to Disney World.
Conrad says he took a keen interest
in business after he began playing the foundation’s
Stock Market Game, a classroom-based simulation program
that provides students with a hypothetical $100,000
to invest over a school semester. He put the bulk of
his dollars in Elan Pharmaceuticals and this spring
realized a 98 percent return. “I’d always
been interested in being a stockbroker, but now I’m
definitely going to be one,” says the 14-year-old.
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