The Business Department of St. Gerald’s College, Castlebar, Co. Mayo, Ireland.
Well done to Ciarán from 4A3 and John from 4A6 on winning their class Stock Competition.
Each student had €100,000 to invest. Ciarán made a highly impressive profit of €72,000 and John made an excellent profit of €55,000 in just six weeks of trading.
These are the highest returns since we started the stock competitions in 2001.
Click the on the links below to view the winning portfolios.
Maybe we should all ask Ciarán and John for some stock tips?
The second sgcbusiness.com Stock Competition is now open for registration.
The competition starts on Friday May 1st and ends on Friday May 22nd.
What are the rules?
How do you enter?
It’s that easy. Let’s see can anyone beat the winner of last year’s competition who made a profit of $344,467.
Post any questions you have in the Comments section of this post.
Some of this week’s business news.
The downturn in global economic activity continues. This has been reflected in the performance of global stock markets so far in 2008.
October 2008 was the worst month for shares in modern history. Investors lost $5.7 trillion in October alone. The Irish market is down 63% in 2008, the UK market is down 45% and the US market is down 33.9%. Global investors have lost $16.22 trillion so far in 2008. This is a classic example of a bear market.
The ECB and the Bank of England have responded to the financial crisis by cutting interest rates by 0.5% and 1.5% respectively. Further cuts are expected in the coming months. What effects will these cuts have on the economy?
What was originally a crisis for financial institutions has now spread to the consumer. Irish car sales have fallen dramatically. They are down 55% on 2007 and this has lead to 2,000 people losing their jobs in the Irish motor industry.
Irish unemployment is likely to reach 320,000 in 2009. An average of 725 people are now being made redundant in Ireland every week. The days of full employment are over.
Dunnes Stores stay silent on takeover rumours.
Bank of Ireland keep losing their customers data.
Finally, another website worth bookmarking. Yahoo Answers is a useful site if you can’t find the answer or solution to a question. There are several categories on the site and they have a Business section as well.
If you have know of any other useful websites, then let us know by posting a comment or you can email them to mrhannon [at] geralds [dot] ie
A short summary of this week’s business news.
Hungary is now the first European Union country to receive financial assistance from the IMF. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is an international financial institution that lends money to countries that are in a financial crisis. The IMF has given financial support (i.e. loans) to Belarus, Iceland, Pakistan and Ukraine in the last week. It has created a $100bn fund to help countries affected by the credit crisis.
German authorities are investigating trading in Volkswagen’s shares after they quadrupled on Monday and Tuesday. On Monday, Porsche announced that it is going to increase its holding in Volkswagen with a view to a possible takeover. It is believed the rapid increase in the share price of Volkswagen was due to short-sellers (who bet that VW’s share price would fall) covering their positions by rapidly buying up stock in Volkswagen.
VW Share Price Chart
Talks between Aer Lingus and trade unions have broken down at the Labour Relations Commission. So, what is the next step in negotiations?
Finally, the trend in global interest rates is downwards. The US Federal Reserve cut rates by another 0.5% in order to help the US economy. It has now cut rates from 5.25% in September 2007 to 1% today. Will the Bank of England and the ECB follow?
If you are thinking of buying some shares then you should spend some time researching the various stockbrokers you can open an account with. Remember you don’t have to open an account with an Irish stockbroker, you can use any stockbroker in any country.
Be careful when opening an account with a stockbroker. As well finding out the commission they charge, do find out if there are any annual maintenance charges for keeping the account open. Most stockbrokers don’t charge an annual fee for maintaining the account but some do.
The Financial Regulator has published an excellent survey on Irish stockbroker charges. Download the survey below.
Remember you can use the services of your bank to buy and sell shares. They do charge a higher commission but if you only plan to buy and sell shares a few times during the year, your bank may be the best option.
You can also find the latest stockbroker charges on askaboutmoney.com
The last few weeks have seen a very volatile stock market.
We are all aware of blogs, RSS, social bookmarking and social networking sites. This is all part of Web 2.0
This has now been applied to stock market investing by Covestor.com
Covestor is a site that allows you to track the stock portfolios and trading strategies of successful stock market investors. You can compare how your stocks perform compared to other investors and funds.
Here are the Top Ten investors on the site as of October 1st:
The above list is from Stock Trading To Go – another site worth looking at if you would like to learn more about stock trading.
Well done to Fifth Year students, Darragh Cuddy and Shane Reilly, who have just set up a private game on a virtual stock exchange website. They are making this game open to all students in St. Gerald’s.
All you have to do is set up an account which only requires an e-mail address and join the game. It’s a pretty easy site to use. The game runs from tonight until New Year’s Eve and each player get $1,000,000 to start off with and can join anytime from now until then.
To take part in the competition:
Game ID:Castlebar (this is case-sensitive)
Game Password: The password has been changed. Email vse [at] geralds [dot] ie to get the new password.
You should take part in the competition. It’s a great way to test your stock trading skills.
Go to the the VSE website and register and then join the game.
I have joined the game myself. I am trading under the name buffet101.
The winner of this module’s stock competition for the 4A6 class is Kenneth Neary. Kenneth made a profit of €9,813.93 from the four stocks in his portfolio. Again, this is an excellent return of 9.8% in a short period of time and taking into account the current volatility in stock markets. Kenneth selected the following stocks for his portfolio:
Well done to Brian Byrne on winning the 4A3 Stock Competition. His winning portfolio showed a return of €7,335.14 in just over two weeks – a great return given the current stock market performance. Over 80% of students that entered the competition made a profit.
How the competition works:
Students were given €100,000 to invest in shares on any stock market. The portfolio could only contain a maximum of five stocks and a minimum of three. The maximum investment per stock was €40,000 and the minimum per stock was €5,000. Exchange rates were fixed for the duration of the competition and no trading of shares was allowed during the competition.
The winner of the 4A6 Stock Competition will be declared on Wednesday May 21st.
Congratulations to Philip Redmond who won the stock competition in 4A6. His total profit was €10,069 in four weeks. A very good return and all down to one stock he picked in his portfolio.
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