Students will be able to cash in on stock market success for the next six weeks.
The fifth annual online WKU Investment Challenge allows any member of the student body, faculty or staff on campus to take $25,000 worth of computerized money and invest it in stocks of their choosing.
The goal is to see how much money can be made in a small period of time, simply from trading stocks valued at more than $10.
The game will be played from Oct. 6 until Nov. 14. Anyone on campus is eligible to play. The last date to register for the game is Nov. 7. Students, faculty and staff are welcome to participate and win prizes.
The student with the most money made at the end of the six weeks wins the $500 first prize. The next nine students to place win cash prizes ranging from the second place prize of $350 to $25 for the sixth to 10th place prize-winners.
Each week the best weekly student return wins a yet unnamed prize as well. Faculty and staff will be playing for a $50 gift certificate for best overall performance. Everyone who participates is invited to a pizza party on Nov. 24 to trade stories and ideas.
The game gives students a unique opportunity to see how the stock market works from a safe distance.
“It would be a good way to understand how those guys in Washington feel,” said Jean Snavely, executive-in-residence of the finance department. Snavely is coordinating the game.
James Hume can testify to that. Hume won the WKU Investment Challenge two years in a row and says the experience helped him make informed decisions quickly.
He graduated with a finance degree in 2007 and now works for Merrill Lynch in Bowling Green.
“The stock market game could be of great use to someone planning to work for a mutual fund,” Hume said.
On Sept. 22 Hume spoke to a group of finance majors, faculty and Financial Management Association officers. He split time at the lecture evenly between the experiences of the stock market game and getting a job with good standing in the community.
“My whole goal was to get a job,” Hume said. “I haven’t been in the business long enough to have setbacks or disappointments.”
Hume spoke confidently to the students about finding footing in the business world and showing initiative when meeting with possible employers.
Hume is just one of several winners of the WKU Investment Challenge from Western as well as its satellite campuses.
There have also been prize winners at the community college, Elizabethtown and Glasgow campuses, though all of the top winners have come from Western.
The game gives students a chance to take big risks and learn from their mistakes while providing a safe guard and incentive to try again.
“I played it the first day and was instantly hooked,” Hume said.
Reach Aaron Burch at diversions@chherald.com.
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