The stock market has been around for over 400 years, with origins in Amsterdam during the 1600s. Today, the stock market’s presence is overwhelming and takes a significant role in the economy and people’s daily lives. In the SPA community, the stock market’s presence shows up most prominently in the form of the Stock Market Club.

Although the Stock Market Club has existed for many years in the upper school, its presence has been on and off as the club sometimes goes away for a year or two when there are no new leaders to take on the club.

Former club co-president David Hsu said, “I don’t know how long the old [Stock Market Club was around], but it was probably sporadic because, after the seniors from my freshman year left, the Stock Market Club no longer existed.”

The current Stock Market Club has four official roles: president, vice president, administrators and regular club members. In the past year, the co-presidents of the club were seniors David Hsu and Oliver Conrod-Wovcha, the vice president was senior Isak Bildtsen and the administrators were Patrick Wall and Greyson Sale.

As the school year progressed, the senior leaders became more often away during club meetings due to other obligations such as managing other clubs or meeting with teachers. During these meetings without the co-presidents and vice president, the administrators would take over and oversee club activities.

“Ford is running the Startup Club, so he’s busy with that. I don’t know about Oliver and Isak, […] they know what they’re usually handling though. […] But I really did pressure them to make sure that the prizes would be given out,” Hsu said.

The main activity the Stock Market Club focused on during the past school year was its stock market simulation competition which everyone participated in. The club uses the Investopedia simulator program, which allows all the members to have their own accounts and compete with other students in the club by simulating the real stock market.

“Basically, we all show up, and we just chill there, and we do our investment. […] The Investopedia [simulation] is you get $100,000 in fake money, and you get to invest it in different companies in real time. […] The companies follow the real stock market, and the original leaders promised the winner with an Apple Watch,” Wall said.

The winner of the stock market simulation this year was one of the administrators, Greyson Sale, finishing the competition at $144,000, followed by fellow administrator Patrick Wall and club member Malcolm Adams. Since Sale won the competition, he was also able to win an Apple Watch that the former club co-president Hsu bought.

“I figured everyone had an iPhone. Also, iPhones are [expensive], I’m not going to spend a thousand dollars. […] But then, I was like, I have a watch, and I was like, ‘hey, watches are useful,’” Hsu said, describing why he chose an Apple Watch as the prize.

Moving forward, administrators Sale and Wall will be taking over the club as the new presidents and they have plans on rebranding the club as Investment Club next year to have a stronger focus on educating students on how to invest and learn more about the economy.

Club member Trevor Hou said, “I feel like [this club] is a really immersive experience for you to truly understand the ins and outs of the stock market. It is a low-stakes kind of educational experience.”

Next year, the club will continue to use the Investopedia stock market simulator to teach students how the stock market works as well as encourage friendly competition.