The Stock Market Game

In the past, I’ve been skeptical of The Stock Market Game. I thought the curriculum neglected basic principles of investing and gave students the erroneous impression that they can predict the future and pick winners in the stock market. Now, I’ve changed my mind. As reported in the Post-Dispatch, This team at McKinley Classical Leadership Academy has clearly learned from the program:

Lissner, president of Acropolis Investment Management, has studied the market for more than 30 years. Papes, who attends McKinley Middle School in St. Louis, has been purchasing imaginary stocks for about a month.

At this point, their financial philosophies are pretty much the same.

“You just have to be lucky,” said Papes, whose class has been playing the Stock Market Game for the past four weeks.

There are a few more great quotes in the article about the random nature of stock prices and the futility of active management. This is inspiring news from a public school in St. Louis, and it’s also some of the best financial analysis I’ve seen from a newspaper in a long time.