Ties for second in MA Personal Finance Challenge

Somerville High School’s Personal Finance I class team of Liam Beretsky-Jewell, Matthew Mannion, Michael Nionakis, and Oliver Wicks won the recent Junior Achievement’s Stock Market Challenge in Boston! The Stock Market Challenge is a fast-paced competition in which students learn how the market operates by investing and trading stocks as if they were managing accounts on the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange.

Students buy and sell a portfolio of stocks and the team with the highest net worth at the end of a 60-day cycle wins. Each team begins with a hypothetical account balance of $500,000. Somerville’s winning team ended with $547,094.05, which translated into an impressive portfolio appreciation of 22.86%. Each winner received a $500 prize. The other two Somerville High teams competing were Jonathan Chan, Nancy Nimako, Justin Torino, and Jason Vargas Diaz; and Damary Figueroa, Jose Gonzalez-Montanez, Manat Kumar, and Halaf Montarroyos.

The Personal Finance team, made up of Liam, Matthew, Michael, and Oliver, also competed in the Massachusetts Personal Finance Challenge and tied for second place! The National Personal Finance Challenge is the nation’s premier financial literacy competition for teens, offering high school students the opportunity to display their knowledge of earning income, spending, saving, investing, managing credit, and managing risk.