Little Wins Big in Investment Essay Competition

Morgan Little, a middle school student at is the Rhode Island first place winner and national 4th place winner of the SIFMA Foundation’s InvestWrite® student essay competition, sponsored by the SIFMA Foundation and SIFMA member firms.  

As a culminating activity for the country’s 600,000 annual Stock Market Game™ participants, Investwrite® challenges 4^th-12^th graders to analyze an investment scenario, think critically and provide a long-term financial plan. Students address real-world economic factors and trends, better preparing for their own financial futures. Morgan Little is one of 20,000 students each year across the nation who take the InvestWrite challenge.

In his essay, Little was asked to describe a conversation with an imaginary stock and what it would say to convince him to include it in his investment portfolio.  He wrote about how “Nuance,” a speech recognition software company, visited him.  

“I decided to buy him. He was a medium cap company, so I called him goldilocks, because he wasn’t too big or too small. I bought him, and I feel like it was a good decision," Little said.

The Spring 2011 winning InvestWrite essay composed by Little was chosen through rigorous judging by thousands of teachers and industry professionals who evaluate student essays. Criteria included asset allocation and investment potential of publicly traded stocks, bonds and mutual funds, overall understanding of the stock market, and ability to express investment

Morgan Little was honored for his InvestWrite achievement at the SIFMA Foundation Awards Ceremony on May 25, 2011, at