'Stock Market Madness' Offers High School Students A Taste Of Finance

UNIVERSITY PARK, PA (March 3, 2008) – The Trading Room at Penn State's Smeal College of Business will play host this summer to a weeklong resident and day camp for high school students interested in learning more about the stock market and the world of finance.

Students entering grades 10 through 12 are invited to sign up for Smeal's Stock Market Madness summer camp, to be held July 13 through 18, for an introduction to stock trading and financial analysis.

Campers will spend a week in Smeal's state-of-the-art Trading Room and participate in stock trading games and learn about probability, statistics, and portfolio theory. They will learn important basics about financial management from Smeal professors and students and explore whether they want to pursue a career in finance.

"This is the second year for this camp, which we designed specifically for high school students who have an interest in the stock market," says David Haushalter, clinical assistant professor of finance and academic director of the Trading Room. "Our goal is to help students get a better understanding of the tools that are used in finance and how markets work. It's a great opportunity for a high school student to see what a career in finance is all about."

Each day, campers will participate in two sessions in the Trading Room, including lessons on using financial tools and terms, basic stock market valuation, trading in financial markets, using probability and statistics for financial decision making, and constructing and evaluating portfolios. 

Campers will learn to trade and compete in simulated financial markets, work in teams to analyze their favorite companies, and build models in Microsoft Excel to analyze and value stocks. Sessions also include lessons on the financial software programs used by investors, including Bloomberg, Reuters, and TradeStation, and an exploration of how poker strategies can be applied to investing.

Voluntary evening activities include a tour of Beaver Stadium and field trips to the campus pool, Penn State's All-Sports Museum, and a State College Spikes minor league baseball game.

Accommodations, meals, and evening activities are provided.

As the main venue for the camp, Smeal's Trading Room replicates a real-world trading experience and functions as a classroom and a laboratory. Several televisions offer access to live coverage of financial news and real-time tickers and stock boards provide students with the latest financial information, including live Bloomberg and Reuters data feeds. Each of the dual-monitor workstations in the Trading Room is equipped with the software needed for virtually any finance-related activity. For more details, visit www.smeal.psu.edu/traderoom.

For complete details on the Stock Market Madness summer camp program, including fees and a complete schedule of activities, visit www.smeal.psu.edu/marketmadness.