In my language arts class at Durham Academy we read The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin. The Westing Game is a mystery novel about the pairs of the hiers of Sam Westing trying to figure out who murdered Sam Westing. In this book, each pair of heirs has a different strategy. One pair, Turtle Wexler and Flora Baumbach, try to use their clues and money they’ve obtained and invest into the stock market.

Because of Turtle Wexler and Flora Baumbach’s adventure into the Stock market, my language arts class decided to do the same. We worked with Mrs. Sprague, a math teacher here at Durham Academy, and Mrs. Donnelly, a language arts teacher here at Durham Academy, to set up spreadsheets with formulas to make updating our current stock prices easier. Each of the students in my class put 20,000 fake dollars into the stock market and over the course of the month of may,  we either gained or lost hundreds or even thousands of dollars. In the end, on May 30, 2023, I gained $740.94.

What I learned through this experience is to always check the news and the stocks history.  I checked the news and the monthly history of at least 20 stocks and finally decided that these four stocks were by far the most consistent. I bought 29 shares of McDonald’s, 15 shares of Costco, 5 shares of Microsoft, and 8 shares of Netflix.