Phase 3: Researching stocks
- Curated list of companies that are publicly traded on the NYSE and NASDAQ exchanges. Here is the link to create your own copy to share with students.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1X04_heUXMnYknmFoM3H6Xg3u7ClPysH9pX04NkMGKLk/copy
2. Student teams work together to decide in which companies they would like to invest
Step ONE: Research companies teams are interested in by using a Google search. In the example, I'm using Microsoft. When I enter "Microsoft" into the Google search bar, I get this response:
Step TWO: Students click on the MSFT link that comes up in the side box next "Stock Price". This is the Stock Symbol (the same symbols you see scrolling along the bottom of your TV screen on CNBC). Every company on the list above has a stock symbol.
Have students click on the symbol of the stock they're researching (in this case, MSFT). This will bring up a screen with a graph depicting 1 day of trading this stock.
On their research forms, they'll be asked to list the price today (whatever day they're doing their research), the price 1 month ago, and the price 1 year ago.
In our Microsoft example below, the price (when I did the screenshot) was $338.70.
If I click on the "1M" button on the screen and hover my mouse at the beginning of the graph, I see that 1 month ago, the price was $276.38.
If I click on "1Y" and hover my mouse over the beginning of the graph, I see the price was $280.52.
Step THREE: Students enter the Company Name, the Stock Symbol, Today's Date, Today's Price, 1 Month Ago Price, and 1 Year Ago Price onto the worksheet linked below.
The worksheet asks students for 20 companies. However, they will only be able to invest in 10.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1PEzicP-_6UpxWr4JUDx2lekrWxcZ8ZIrSR4YkevyBIc/copy
NOTE: A good lesson for research is DIVERSIFICATION! Generally, when ONE industry faces tough times, all companies in that industry begin to lose value. So if students are choosing 10 different chocolate companies, they could be opening themselves up to losses in all of them!