Many clubs at MHS participate in competitions against other high schools in the Bay Area or across the country, and the Stock Market Club is one of these clubs. Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, the Stock Market Club has still been able to partake in competitions.
The competitions currently resemble what they were like before the pandemic because everything is done online, Co-President Aditya Iyer said via email. They are run on an online platform, so there were not many changes made to the rules or format of the competitions, Iyer said. The club prefers competing virtually because of the ability to check the online markets with ease, Iyer said.
However, the club officers experienced difficulties in terms of teaching information about stocks to their club members as a result of the quarantine. “A virtual environment makes it harder for people to learn ratios and stock patterns because displaying charts, graphs, and financial statements is not as simple as doing it in person via projector,” Iyer said. “Also, it is slightly harder to see whether people [can] understand the concepts since people tend not to ask questions on Zoom calls,” Iyer added.
The club is currently participating in the SIFMA competition, which stands for Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association. The SIFMA competition is solely focused on trading and the return on investment, Co-President Henry Liev said via email. The competition is currently halfway done, with the competition concluding on April 28, Liev said.
“In our competitions, we are given an initial amount of paper money (fake money) and the goal is to gain as much money as possible,” Iyer said. “We must trade and invest in stocks in order to make the most money in a couple [of] months’ time,” Iyer continued.
The online platform that is used during competitions is similar to those of normal brokerages and has charts and graphs that allow teams to monitor their investment progress, Iyer said. As for how the Stock Market Club competes, the team is divided into groups, with each member in the group focusing on a particular form of analysis, Iyer said. Each group makes trades and investments after the different forms of analysis discuss with other forms of analysis done by other teammates, Iyer added.
The pandemic caused some hurdles and challenges, but the Stock Market Club is still doing well. “Our club is still strong in its ability to teach members how to learn market strategies, and it is a never-ending pursuit to get better at teaching, learning, and applying,” Iyer said. “We have adapted to these changes by designing our curriculum in such a way that it is easy to learn and understand via Zoom.”