Albany Early College captures region title

ALBANY — Taking chances, yet being patient at other times, helped members of an Albany Early College team win the region title in the national Stock Market Game competition.

The five-member, seventh-grade squad of Jemmerio Miller, Bryan Bartie, Hitrendria Fowler, Kiondria McCloud and Marcus Walls finished first out of 151 teams in the Dougherty County region. Math teacher Daisy Harter was the advisor for the team, which competed against squads in grades 4-12. It was the first time the students and Harter had participated in the competition.

The online Stock Market Game provides each team with a virtual cash account of $100,000. Students use a live trading simulation to build their team’s portfolio.

Albany Early College’s team finished with $110,067.57 in total equity for a 6.0223 percent return above the average S&P 500 growth. The team finished 160th overall in the state. The win earned them an invitation to the statewide banquet for all the winning teams in May at the Georgia Freight Depot in Atlanta in Underground Atlanta. The team will have to pay its expenses to attend the event, said Barbara Harp-Futrell of Georgia Stock Market Game and Georgia Council on Economic Education.

Atlanta’s Westminster Schools captured the state fall title out of 4,349 teams with $204,783.58 in total equity and a 100.7383 percent return above S&P 500 growth. The 32-year-old Stock Market Game is also contested in the spring.

“I was very pleased,” said Harter, who taught last year at Merry Acres Middle School. “Some of the teams didn’t put forth much effort, but I was glad the team that put forth effort did well. You could tell the team was really interested in their stock on a daily basis and were disappointed if it didn’t change much.”

The high finish came after a slow start for the team of Bryan, Hitrendria, Jemmerio, Kiondria and Marcus. At one point, the squad’s stock dropped to $80,000. In the first couple of weeks of the competition, which started in September and ended Thursday, the team was 60th out of 65 teams. Team rankings were released weekly by the Georgia Council on Economic Education.

“Sometimes we were nervous because our stock went down,” Marcus said.

But the students soon realized that stock fluctuation is normal.

“What we learned is we could buy one stock one day and the next day or hour it would be going down,” Kiondria said. “So we’d sell and then the next time we’d look at and it’d be going back up.”

After their early struggles, the team began taking more calculated risks. They used 21 different stocks and found Google, Wal-Mart and Yahoo were their best.

“I thought we’d lose because anything we’d buy would go down and so one of my teammates said we were going to take some risks and it just started going up,” Bryan said.

The more open mind-set paid off.

“When we took chances, we could’ve gone up or down, but most likely we would go up and would do better than other teams because we bought more stock and our stock would go up and we’d earn more money,” Jemmerio said. “(When) something was high, we bought it and then it started to go up. It proved that if we take chances we can win.”

Albany Early College had 15 teams compete in the fall Georgia Stock Market Game. Its other teams placed 10th, 43rd, 51st, 52nd, 56th, 64th, 71st, 106th, 109th, 114th, 118th, 126th, 131st and 135th in the region. All of the Albany Early College’s entrants were coached by Harter.

Monroe Comprehensive High School had the second-place regional finisher and Southside Middle School had the third-place team.

The Albany Early College program is in its second year. It is a collaboration between Albany State University and Dougherty County School System. It has seventh- and eighth-grade students and is housed in the former student housing Andrews Hall complex on the ASU campus.