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	Investments

For other activities, see the Activities Chapter.

Investing in the stock market, mutual funds, bonds, ... is becoming more important in our lives especially in light of the possible changes to Social Security. It is especially important for our children to start understanding the terms early. This fits in well with the Personal Management Merit Badge.

What better way to promote interest and learning than to hold a competition to see whose portfolio is worth the most after a year?

You might want to offer a prize, like a $50 savings bond, for the person whose portfolio is worth the most at the end of the period.

The youth and the adults really enjoyed this activity. Talk to them about stocks and mutual funds, the terms, the risks, how to do research on the internet, ... Give them a couple of weeks to pick up to five stocks or mutual funds each.

Run the competition for a fixed period of time, say one year. Get a newspaper for the day you are going to start the competition. That way you can look up the starting prices of stocks for those who don't get started on time.

Limit the choices to stocks and mutual funds listed in the newspaper. Decide on an amount of money, for this example $1000, that each person will have to invest. Have them give you a dollar amount for each stock (like $500 of XXX, $200 of YYY, and $300 of ZZZ). The sum of all should be $1000. You will have to determine the number of shares of each stock or mutual fund.

Download this Excel Spread Sheet to help you keep track of the investments. There is a summary page that is easy to print that shows everyone's progress. Then there is one sheet for each participant.

• Column A pulls the name of the person from cell A1 on the individual page.
• Column B, D, ... pulls the value from each individual's page.
• Column C, E, ... calculates the change from the last update. Losses are in parenthesis and red.
• Beneath the list of participants are formulas that find the participant whose portfolio is worth the most and least.

To set the summary page up, insert a worksheet for each participant using Insert => Worksheet. Then right click on the tab, select Rename and change the name to the person's name. Then update the formulas in column A and B with the person's name.

Insert extra rows as needed for additional participants. Adjust the formulas at the bottom to span all the participants.

• Cell A1 contains the person's name.
• Cells B1 through F1 contain the company name.
• Cells B2 through F2 contain the abbreviation from the newspaper.
• Cells B3 through F3 contain the company ticker symbol.
• Cells B4 through F4 contain the number of shares of stock.
• Cell A6 contains the date the contest started.
• Cells B6 through F6 contain the value of the stock on the starting day of the contest.
• Row 7 contains the total dollar amount for that stock. When setting up for the first time use this row to adjust the values to get close to the dollar amount the participant wanted of the particular stock. Cell G7 is the amount left over that is placed in a saving account that earns 2% per year. This number should be positive. Play with the values of each stock and try to balance it with the dollar amount the participant wanted to purchase.
• Row 9 contains the per share value of the investment on the date of the first update.
• Row 10 shows the change per share from the last update.
• Row 11 shows the total value of the shares on the date.
• Row 12 shows the change in the total value of the investment since the last update.
• Use rows 9 to 12 for the first update and lines 14 to 17 for the second update. After that, copy rows 14 to 17 and paste them below the last entry. Enter the new values for each stock in the top line and the rest will update automatically on this page and the summary page.

My Netscape has a feature that allows you to select a large number of stocks and display their value on one page. This makes capturing the information very easy. This is very important since you will be getting up to five stocks/mutual funds per person. You'll have to sign up with Netscape to access it.

Updating the spreadsheet takes a little time, but having all the stock values on one page helps. On each individual's page, you must copy rows 14 to 17 and paste them at the bottom. Leave a blank line to make it more readable. Update the price of each stock. Then on the summary page, copy the last two columns and paste them in the next column. In each value cell, you will have to change the row number of the formula to the correct row. If you leave one blank line, then just add five to the row number.

After participants have chosen their stocks and you have updated the spreadsheet, print out the individual page for each person and a copy of the summary page for everyone. That way everyone will know how many shares of each stock they bought.

Update the spreadsheet monthly and give each participant a copy of the summary sheet. Discuss who has had big gains or losses and why those things might have happened. Better yet, let the youth explain it to the group. Some reasons for change include corporate announcements, profit, loss, market share, new product, and new management.

The Internet is a huge resource. However, be warned, many web sitees require you to sign up before using their free services. After doing the research for this activity, I started receiving a lot of junk/SPAM e-mails. You might want to set up a free e-mail account on Yahoo or Hotmail to use.