FINANCE 1000
STOCK MARKET PORTFOLIO CHALLENGE
FALL 2009
The Mizzou Finance 1000
Stock Market Portfolio Challenge
Managing Your Own Investments in Stocks
B
aseball fans sometimes practice being a professional baseball team’s manager
by participating in a fantasy baseball league. In the fantasy league, managers
direct games whose results depend on the real performance of their players
and the decisions taken by the manger during the game. Managers can even
trade players during the season to try to gain a competitive advantage. The fantasy
baseball league is a simulation of a real baseball league.
The Mizzou Finance 1000 Stock Market Portfolio Challenge,
powered by STOCK-TRAK, is a simulation of the stock
market. There is no additional fee to participate in the
Portfolio Challenge; you can set up your account at no charge.
Everyone in your class begins with a balance of $1,000,000
(yes, that’s $1 million) to invest in stocks and mutual funds.
You make your own investment decisions. Check out
businesses all around you. Did you receive great service and products last time you
visited an Old Navy store? Think it might be going places? So, you do a little research
and find that
•
Old Navy is owned by a corporation call Gap, Inc. (that’s right, the same
company that runs Banana Republic and Gap stores).
•
Gap, Inc. has shares of common stock that trade on the New York Stock
Exchange. That means that anyone who wants to be a part owner of Gap can
do so by purchasing some of these shares through a stock brokerage firm.
•
The stock symbol for Gap is GPS, and a recent price is $22 per share.
You decide to buy 100 shares of Gap for your Portfolio Challenge account. You do
this quickly and easily by logging in to your account on the web, entering Gap’s stock
symbol, the number of shares you want to trade, and the direction of your trade (a buy
order as opposed to a sell order).
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FINANCE 1000
STOCK MARKET PORTFOLIO CHALLENGE
FALL 2009
You now have 100 shares of Gap in your stock portfolio. If Gap’s price on the New
York Stock Exchange rises, your account will show a profit. You can keep track of the
performance of your account and the rest of your class by checking the Portfolio
Challenge web site.
The Portfolio Challenge Website
The web address of the Mizzou Finance 1000 Stock Market Portfolio Challenge is the
normal site for Stock-Trak,
www.stocktrak.com
Direct your browser to the
Stock-Trak site and click on
“STUDENTS! Register HERE”
(in the yellow box at the right
side of the screen). Enter the
correct section of Finance 1000
for which you are enrolled.
Following is the list of Class
Names:
Mizzou-Fin1000-01-Fall09-Pettus
Mizzou-Fin1000-02-Fall09-Eckelkamp
Mizzou-Fin1000-03-Fall09-Chalmers
Mizzou-Fin1000-04-Fall09-Abkemeier
Mizzou-Fin1000-05-Fall09-Nielson
Mizzou-Fin1000-06-Fall09-McMullan
Mizzou-Fin1000-07-Fall09-Phillips
Mizzou-Fin1000-08-Fall09-Gill
Mizzou-Fin1000-09-Fall09-Helmig
Mizzou-Fin1000-10-Fall09-Hamzaee
Mizzou-Fin2000-05-Fall09-Mertz
When you have entered a valid Class Name, information for that class will appear on
the screen. Note that the instructor’s name will appear as Dan French who is the chair
of the Finance Department. All other information will be correct as it applies to your
course and section.
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FINANCE 1000
STOCK MARKET PORTFOLIO CHALLENGE
FALL 2009
Choose a Username and password for your account. Record this information in the
space below so that you will have a record of it.
My Finance 1000 Stock Market Portfolio
Challenge Account Information
Username
Password
Starting Date
Monday October 5
Ending Date
Friday November 20
Checking Out the Rules
A complete set of rules and other investing information is
available on the Stock-Trak website. Check these out by
browsing through the set of menus, especially the Quotes
and Research selections.
You may trade the following types of securities in your
Portfolio Challenge account:
•
•
•
Stocks
Mutual funds
Other types of securities
You can make the following types of transactions:
•
•
•
•
Buy
Sell
Sell (short)
Buy (to cover a stock you sold short)
Making Transactions
To buy or sell stocks, click on the “Trading” menu and select the type of security you
want to trade.
To make a transaction, you will need to supply the following information:
•
Your username and password,
•
The type of transaction (buy, sell, sell short, or buy to cover a short)
•
The stock ticker symbol that represents the stock
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FINANCE 1000
STOCK MARKET PORTFOLIO CHALLENGE
FALL 2009
•
The number of shares to trade
•
If you want to specify a price limit for your transaction you may to so in the
box provided
The ticker symbol is a symbol comprised of one to five capital letters, although they are
usually three or four letters long. For example, INTL is Intel Corporation and MCD is
McDonald’s.
You can find a company’s symbol by choosing “Quotes” from the Portfolio Challenge
home page and then selecting “Symbol Lookup.” Stock symbols often seem obvious,
such as the symbol for General Motors (GM). However, they are not always so
apparent. Check out the symbol for Southwest Airlines.
The purpose of the Stock Market Challenge is to learn about investing, and to have
some fun while doing it.
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