Cranston Fifth Grader Wins Financial Essay Contest

Watch out, Warren Buffett.

Cecily Russo, a fifth-grade student at , could be giving you a run for your money pretty soon.

Russo claimed the top prize for the elementary school division in an essay contest sponsored by the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA).

Based on her essay, which was judged rigorously by a wide variety of teachers and industry professionals, Russo showed she has a keen financial intuition in addition to handling the fundamentals of investing in the stock market.

Russo is one of 20,000 students who entered the Fall 2011 SIMFA Foundation InvestWrite contest. It is the culminating event in the annual Stock Market Game that draws more than a half million students in the United States every year.

In her essay, Russo said playing the stock market game taught her that "patience is key."

"When you buy a stock, you don't want to sell it right away and make a harsh decision that could affect you later in life," Russo wrote. "Losing money is never a good objective, whether it's in the stock market or getting pick-pocketed. The Stock Market Game has taught me many things that will help me in my financial future."

The purpose of the competition is intended to promote financial literacy among young people and "bridges classroom learning in mathematics, social studies, language arts, business and economics, with practical research and knowledge required for long-term personal financial planning," according to a release.

“Year after year, thousands of volunteer judges are astounded by InvestWrite students’ ability to effectively plan for long-term financial goals such as saving for college, buying a first home, and even retirement” said Melanie Mortimer, executive director of the SIFMA Foundation. “It proves the adage ‘it’s never too early to start’ and inspires us to do all we can at the SIFMA Foundation to equip millions of students like Cecily with personal financial skills for lifelong success.”

Russo's teacher, Jim Gemma, has been teaching in Cranston schools since 2022.

"Mr. Gemma firmly believes in setting the bar high for his students," the release stated. "He uses InvestWrite to apply standard curricular lessons to a real world scenario and has found that this experience encourages students’ communication with parents and family members.  By doing so, the students’ level of confidence increases exponentially."

Full text of Russo's essay:

"I really enjoyed being part of the Stock Market Game. The Stock Market Game is a theoretical investment competition between elementary and high school students. I learned that research is important when purchasing stocks. My group bought Apple Inc. as our stock because our research determined that it was a good stock. In my financial future, I will be able to find a worthy stock to buy because of my early investing experience.

When investing in companies, I’ve learned that there are some very important items you should research before buying a stock. The first item is to buy the chosen stock at its lowest price per share, one way to determine this is to watch it over a series of days. Another thing you should research is whether the company is progressive; to do this, you look at the year long span to see how large or small the company’s gains and losses are. The last item you will want to research is the sales of the products the company is selling. We figured this out by going to the companies’ websites, looking at their products and seeing if they are viable. Our group used these research tools when we purchased stocks for the game.

After our thorough research, we believe that Apple Inc. is a wise choice because it met the goals of our three research items. It is a progressive company with wonderful products that many people prefer for various jobs and for recreation. When my group bought stock in Apple Inc. the price per share was growing and we all really savored their products. Apple Inc. is a very inventive company. They created the first MP3 player (iPod), the first tablet (iPad), and the first iPhone. The iPhone is the highest selling smart phone in the U.S.A. that can do almost anything a computer can do. They also came up with a very cool device that is used for sharing information with other Apple products, called the iCloud. In the future Apple Inc. is likely to come out with more advanced electronics, making their stock price grow.

Playing the Stock Market Game has taught me many different skills that may help me later on in life; for example, it has taught me to research what you are buying before purchasing it, especially stocks. It has also taught me about investing in high and low risk stocks. The younger you are the higher risk stocks you will want to buy because you have a greater amount of time to make up the money you may have lost. Conversely, the closer you get to retirement age the lower risk stocks you will want to buy. One final thing that the Stock Market Game has taught me is that patience is key. When you buy a stock, you don’t want to sell it right away and make a harsh decision that could affect you later in life. If you do sell a stock too early it can make you lose money. Losing money is never a good objective, whether it’s in the stock market or getting pick-pocketed. The Stock Market Game has taught me many things that will help me in my financial future.

The Stock Market Game has taught me many valuable tools such as, using research before purchasing a stock. You will also want to make sure that the company that you are looking to invest in has met your research goals. Lastly, you will want to choose whether to buy a high or low risk stock, depending on your age. The Stock Market Game has taught me many things that I will use later on in my financial future.