Connecticut Seventh-grader Wins SIFMA Foundation’s National Investwrite ® Essay Competition
SIFMA Foundation programs are also preparing students like Kalwat for their financial lives. The SIFMA Foundation’s Stock Market Game ™ , an online simulation of the global capital markets for 4 th through 12 th grade students, reinforces STEM learning and 21st Century skills as well as economics and personal finance. InvestWrite builds on what students learn in The Stock Market Game to further explore practical financial decision-making. Students gain confidence and a deeper understanding of economic opportunities, consequences, and benefits. They consider real-world events and news, conduct research online, and develop investment recommendations. Where they work in groups during The Stock Market Game program, InvestWrite participants write individual essays to reflect their critical thinking, analysis and creative talents. Since InvestWrite’s launch in 2004, almost 229,000 students have submitted essays.
The Fall 2018 InvestWrite competition required students to select an entrepreneur they admire, research their company and explain how they would advise the entrepreneur to invest the company’s assets. Brian Kalwat highlighted the leadership of Walt Disney. Kalwat indicated in his essay that he would recommend a diversified approach and wrote, “One thing that I would suggest if Disney successfully raised money in the capital markets is to diversify. Diversification is very important in the stock market. This is because it may protect you from losing lots of money.” Kalwat concluded.
Winning InvestWrite essays are chosen through rigorous judging by thousands of teachers and industry professionals who evaluate students’ understanding of long-term investing, diversification, the global capital markets, and factors that drive investments as well as their expression of investment ideas in essay form. Winners receive exciting awards and prizes including laptops, classroom pizza parties, trophies, plaques and banners, and certificates. The first-place national winners in middle school and high school are awarded a three-day all-expense paid trip to New York City, the financial capital of the world, with their teacher and a parent...