Seniors Beat More Than 1,000 teams in Stock Market Game

Editor's note: The following is a press release.

Earning 41% growth in one quarter in a nationwide stock-challenge game, Catholic Memorial seniors Chang Quan of Roslindale and Hao Tang of Dedham were named first in more than 1,000 teams in Massachusetts in the annual SIMFA Foundation's Stock Market Game on April 30.

The two accounting students in Mr. Bernard Sullivan's senior course invested an imaginary $100,000, as thousands of their peers did across the nation. By April 30, their portfolio had earned $41,000.

More remarkably, CM also fielded the 3rd place team in the state: Ruairi Page of Jamaica Plain and Sean Cushing of Roslindale.

How did Tang and Quan beat over 1,000 teams from across Massachusetts?

Mostly by riding the wave of stocks like Tudo, the Chinese YouTube-like site whose stock nearly tripled in value this spring. But other smaller tech-focused stocks, like ERT and SINA, helped boost their portfolio.

"We didn't think we were going to win," said Quan. "We were just doing the basic rules of stocks, after studying how the stock market works. Luck played a very important role."

Tang also admitted learning a lot from his mother, who invests from time to time in the market. "We're just students, we don't know a lot about economics yet," he said. "But she bought Tudo, so we bought it too. We looked for a lot of hot IT stocks from China."

The two classmates watched volatility and learned from their mistakes in the three-month long contest, which eleven senior teams from CM competed in. Though they lost money on some trades, their growth was impressive. Page and Cushing's team, despite coming in third place in the state, earned 13% by comparison.

"This was a hard-working, industrious and motivated team from the start," said accounting teacher Bernie Sullivan, whose students have never placed first in ten years of the program. "I was very impressed with their performance."