If You’re Playing The Market, Ask These Kids

From the University of Bridgeport:

UB business school students beat the market by double digits: grab 16th consecutive title at Connecticut Stock Market Game

They beat the stock market by more than 15 percent. And that was good enough for a team of University of Bridgeport (UB) MBA students to walk away with first place at the Connecticut Stock Market Game, the investing challenge that invites university teams to make as much money as they can in ten weeks.

The challenge, which is held each fall and spring and most recently ran October 10 to December 16, is cosponsored by SIFMA and the New York Stock Exchange Foundation.

This year, UB and 16 other teams were invited to invest a hypothetical $100,000 with the goal of racking up the biggest gains.

The UB team not only wrapped up the competition with $118,092.01, a gain of 15.99 percent, it secured the business school’s stronghold on the hotly contested stock market rivalry: UB teams have placed first, second, and/or third in every semester of the Connecticut Stock Market Game since 2004 for a total of 16 top finishes.

This year, the team focused on undervalued high-tech and IT stocks, said Stephen Rashba, a professor at the School of Business and the team’s adviser, who formerly worked for a broker-dealer.

“We credit a combination of strategy and good fortune: buying 200 shares of Google on the first day of the competition, before it spiked, certainly helped. But we also really focused on market timing and early trading,” said Rashba.

UB team members included: Sissy Shen, Carrie Lu, Ying Zhou, Xiao Huang, and Pelin Erbil.