Black Jack

I walked into the class room and was handed chips for black jack, and I didn't even think to count how many I got. I knew the basic idea of how to play the game, but didn't know a lot of the "rules". I sat down at the table and as constantly one of the highest bidders. I went all in and got lucky that I got black jack and was payed double what I bet. In the end I got greedy and went all in again and didn't get so lucky, I lost everything I made. This thought me not to play the stock market with emotion, but with research and common sense.

Microsoft

I just bought the Microsoft stock about a week ago as a trade. I did this because the new Xbox is coming out in November and the Xbox is a very popular gaming system and is predicted to sell millions the first day. I might not have bought Microsoft if it were up and making money but when I bought it, it was down. I will sell this stock November 24th.

Trade vs Investment

When comparing trades and investments the first thing that comes to my mind is time. A trade usually lasts for less than six months, where an investment lasts longer than six months. If you buy a share of a company as an investment you will probably get a dividend. A dividend is where the company sends out small amounts of money to everybody who has a share in their company, this probably won't come out to be a lot of money. In a trade you don't usually get a dividend because you haven't been with the company long enough. In a trade if the value of your stock decreases you should probably sell if the catalyst has already happened; if the catalyst has not happened yet wait until it has and then you make a decision. In an investment if your stock goes down you can wait it out, sell it, or buy more. In my opinion the best thing to do here is buy more shares because that means you will start making money at a lower price. If a stock increases during a trade you could sell, but the best thing to do is wait until two or three days after the catalyst and then sell. If your investment is going up just keep letting it go up until it gets around 15%. When it comes to trades always wait until after the catalyst to try and sell. If you are investing you might go through several catalysts and still not sell. Short selling is a short term trade where you bet against the market.

Candy Stock Market

I remember meeting Mr. Kapptie outside of his classroom wondering what I was about to go through. At first I figured it would be some sort of activity that was about the stock market, but after listening to Mr. Kapptie talk about how hot it was inside and saw that the lights were off I started to second guess myself. When he first opened the door I noticed there was candy laying every where. At first I started grabbing handfuls of candy not knowing what I was really doing, but then the money laying on the floor caught my eye and instead of grabbing candy I resorted to grabbing all of the money I could find. After the chaos of cleaning the floor was over I looked around and realized I had a lot less candy than most people, but I also realized that I had a lot more money than everybody else in the room. At first when Mr. Kapptie started writing values on the board for different things I didn't really know what to do. After waiting for about five or six minutes of not buying or selling anything I decided to move all my candy to the middle of the room where people might see it. Right after moving my stuff to a new table Mr. Kapptie told me that sweet tarts were overrated, so I immediately started selling my sweet tarts. I had never learned anything about the stock market (aside from what I learned in class) before playing this game, and so I figured that to do we'll I would have to start buying more stuff. I started buying all the stuff that was lower money on the bored like tootsie pops, twizzlers, Heath bars, and laffy taffy. I had stored up a decent number of each item so at the end they really helped me. At the beginning of the game I grabbed four packs of nerds and couldn't sell them which worked out to my advantage because they split at the very end. After all of this chaos we were told to calculate our total value. I practically spent all my money by the end of the game which turned out to be a good thing I think I finished with a total around 5,000 something dollars.