The stock market is something high school students don’t often consider in their day to day lives unless your part of this group. Liam Silvera, Sia Pingali, Ali Khan, and Akbar Khan were the members of the group that won the stock market challenge this year. What’s the Stock Market challenge you ask? It’s a multi-month long game based on the real Stock Market and all of its fluctuations and complexities. Each school has its own voluntary adviser, in our case history teacher Mr. Chuhran, and is allowed two to four teams. Teams compete on their own in regional competitions between other school based teams.

Participants in The Stock Market Chellenge are allowed to deal in both the buying and selling stocks as well as shorting them. What is shorting a stock you ask? Shorting a stock is when you buy a position on a stock where you are essentially betting against said stock. Unlike when you normally buy a stock in the hope that it will increase in price, with shorts you hope the stock depreciates in value and as it does you receive an according return on your investment. It was through utilizing this form of playing the market that the Titan group was able to rise to the top of the ranks.

With an initial fund of $100,000 dollars, of fake digital money, the Titans invested in some growth stocks to begin with, stocks that you initially invest in and then let alone to simply grow until you sell your position. They then proceeded to “ride the wave” of various stocks shorting them as they went. To “ride the wave” means to follow the natural ups and downs of the value of a stock due to natural fluctuations in the environment of the stock or it’s company. Mainly focusing on penny stocks and biotech companies in the span of a couple of months these four Titans where sitting on around $140,000 in the final days of trading for the competition. They sat at minimum $15,000 ahead of their nearest competitor. Not only did they win this year but it was their second time winning in a row setting a perfect record for those involved so far with all except Akbar Khan having participating since their junior years, Akbar started his freshman year and is currently a sophomore. The team was offered the chance to visit Towson University to be recognized for their achievement but will unfortunately be unable to attend due to AP testing. Be sure to congratulate your fellow Titans on their achievement should you pass them and if you are interested in the stock market game, or finance and economics in general talk to Mr. Chuhran about taking Macroeconomics next year or about joining the Stock Market Club next year where all of this took place.