Four Wallace High School pupils travelled to Dublin recently for the Awards presentation of the Irish Indepent / Setanta Asset Management 2003 Student Investment Challenge.
Over 8000 pupils in second and third level education from the four provinces of Ireland took part in this prestigious challenge which invited young people to invest a notional €100 000 for a six month period in a stock portfolio.
Wallace’s team, “INVESTWH”, made up of Form Four pupils David Lorimer, Edward McMullan, Neill McCartney and Stewart McClean, was awarded a commendable second place in the Team category.
The boys’ original investment of €100 000 showed an impressive 20.125 % increase over the six month period which was extremely impressive considering recent difficult market conditions.
The Wallace team’s portfolio was led by investments in Ryanair and Vodafone.
Fifteen year old Edward McMullan from Anahilt commented, “We selected Ryanair as their shares were very cheap when we started this project. We reckoned that low-cost airlines will always be in demand and we knew that Ryanair’s Chairman Michael O’Leary is a very proactive entrepreneur.”
Careful thought also went into the notional purchase of Vodafone shares. Stewart McClean added, “Vodafone’s involvement withsponsorship of successful teams such as Manchester United coupled with the ever developing mobile phone industry certainly influenced our decision.”
Fifteen year old David Lorimer from Crumlin said, “Our day in Dublin was very enjoyable. The ceremony took part in Croke Park and we had the opportunity to visit the GAA mmuseum before being presented with our prizes – 35mm cameras – by Noel Dempsey, the Irish Minister for Education and Science.”
Neill McCartney from Dunmurry added, “Taking part in this challenge was very exciting – we really enjoyed monitoring our portfolio’s progress. However, it was east to be daring about stock selection due to the fact we were not dealing with real money. I don’t know whether we’d have the courage to risk thousands on a daily basis in careers as stockbrokers.”
David Lorimer concluded, ” The Student Challenge has give us a chance to see our Business Studies GCSE work in practice. We’ve learnt a great deal through this experience. ”
Head of Economics and Business Studies at Wallace, Karen Neill, said, ” We’e thrilled by the boys’ success in such a hotly contestested challenge. they did very well considering they were competing agaonst third level students.”
Portfolio analysis:
Ryanair – 22.727% increase
AIB – 6.255 % increase
IBM – 17 % increase
Vodafone – 34.626% increase
Total profit – 20125.426 Euro
Last modified: February 24, 2016
