Bugbee fifth grader Natalie Sheehy placed first in Connecticut and eighth nationally in the SIFMA Foundation’s Spring 2023 National InvestWrite Competition.

By Ronni Newton

The end of the academic year is typically filled with school-centered ceremonies and awards presentations, but for one West Hartford fifth grader, achievement on the statewide and national level was celebrated.

On the Monday of her last week in fifth grade at West Hartford’s Bugbee School, Natalie Sheehy was surprised at the monthly school assembly with the news that she had placed first in Connecticut and eighth in the nation in the Security Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA) Stock Market Game’s essay contest, InvestWrite.

Bugbee Principal Kelly Brouse said Natalie was presented with giant balloons, a banner to sign and hang in the school, a medal, and prizes from the Stock Market game. Brouse said Natalie’s parents, Brendan and Elizabeth Sheehy, and QuEST teacher Elyse Post Perez, who manages the Stock Market game for the school, joined the Bugbee community in the auditorium and cheered as she graciously accepted the award on stage and even read part of the essay to the school.

“We are so proud of Natalie’s achievement, her poignant reflections on the power of teamwork, and her impressive knowledge of financial management,” Brouse said in an email. “I will definitely be calling her in a few years to make sure I am managing my finances properly!”

“‘Great things in business are never done by one person; they’re done by a team,’ Apple Founder Steve Jobs said. Natalie Sheehy couldn’t agree more,” the SIMFA Foundation wrote in a news release announcing Natalie’s achievement. The Foundation noted that Natalie understands “how teamwork can translate into building a diversified portfolio geared for long-term financial success. Sheehy’s approach led to an extraordinary achievement in the SIFMA Foundation’s Spring InvestWrite competition.”

Thousands of students from across the country competed in the InvestWrite essay contest on the topic of long-term investing and the capital markets.

According to the SIFMA Foundation, the “InvestWrite national essay competition bridges classroom learning in math, social studies, and language arts with the practical research and knowledge required for saving, investing and long-term planning. It also serves as a culminating activity for The Stock Market Game, a curriculum-based financial education program that challenges students to manage a hypothetical $100,000 online portfolio of stocks, bonds, mutual funds and cash over a semester or school year.”

Through its programs, the SIMFA Foundation, which is committed to closing the opportunity gap, looks to improve students’ test scores in math and economics, increase focus on budgeting and financial planning, and foster teamwork to build interpersonal social and emotional learning – all of which are important skills related to future college or career goals. The SIMFA Foundation also focuses on “fostering greater knowledge of the financial markets for young people of all backgrounds, with a focus on underserved youth.”

“I am delighted to congratulate Natalie, her teacher and their school,” Melanie Mortimer, president of the SIFMA Foundation, said in the release. “The research is clear that social and emotional learning is a critical component to students’ motivation, achievement and wellbeing. By participating in the Stock Market Game and InvestWrite, Natalie has learned how working with a team can offer insights and increase confidence to make informed financial life decisions and achieve better life outcomes.”

The prompt for students entering the competition, who were in grades 4 through 12, was: “What are some benefits of working on a team versus on your own? Give examples from your Stock Market Game team or other examples of teamwork. Teaming up investments in a diversified portfolio also has benefits. If you could invest $10,000 now for a long-term goal, what team of investments, including stocks, bonds and/or mutual funds, would you choose and why?”

In her essay “Teamwork Makes the Difference,” a complete copy of which can be found below, Natalie noted the importance of teammates: “A team brings things like diversity, different risk tolerances, and covering more in a small amount of time. Having a team has helped me with my investing in all of these ways,” she wrote.

Teamwork Makes the Difference

Having a team when investing is super important, it has helped me a lot with investing. A team brings things like diversity, different risk tolerances, and covering more in a small amount of time. Having a team has helped me with my investing in all of these ways.

Diversity of knowledge is a benefit of working on a team. For example, my friend might love cars, so he might know all about how different car investments are doing like Ford and Tesla. I love to travel, so I know all about different travel investments like airlines (Spirit), hotels (the Marriott) and destinations (Walt Disney World).

Another benefit of working together is risk tolerance. Some of my friends like to invest in everything and take a lot of risk. Others, like me, are more cautious and don’t want to lose any money. On my team we have risky, safe and in between portfolios. This is helpful because the market is constantly changing. Over the last two years, sometimes the risky portfolio has done well, while the safe has done badly. And vice versa. The in between one has usually stayed the same.

Lastly, a benefit of working together is that we can cover more in an amount of time. This is useful especially for stocks because they never stay still and need a lot of research. For covering many stocks, I think about it this way. Each person looks at 10 stocks every day. If there’s three people on the team, 30 stocks have been looked at. This saves us lots of time and allows us to research more.

Our team consisted of my classmates so everyone on the team is friends. Also, we are very talented investors. We usually agree with each other on what to invest in. If we don’t, we talk about it and come to a conclusion. If we still don’t agree, we vote. This method has served us well.

A good team of investments includes stocks, bonds, and mutual funds. Stocks are shares in a company that a person can own. If the company does well, stocks go up, but if something goes wrong, stocks can fall. Stocks can make you a lot of money fast, but you also need to be careful because you can lose money just as fast. Balancing out with bonds is a good idea since bonds are very safe because the company or government promises to pay back your money plus interest. Mutual funds are also safer than stocks, they let you combine your money with other investors to buy stocks and bonds together. You can have different stocks within your mutual fund which helps take down riskiness. Bonds and mutual funds can help smooth out your investments.

If I had $10,000 of investments for the long term, I’d choose $5,000 in stocks, $2,500 in bonds, and $2,500 in mutual funds. 50% of my money would go to stocks because I’m young and can be risky in my investments, I have my whole life ahead of me. 25% would go into bonds. They don’t pay a lot of interest, but they’re safe because when you invest you know the percentage of interest you will make for the life of the bond. The last 25% would go into mutual funds. These are also safer choices because they have a lower risk tolerance because there are many stocks within one investment. 50/50 risky/safe is a good choice.

Within stocks, over the last two years I invested in a few smartly timed stocks such as:

• • Cameco Corporation, one of the largest providers of uranium fuel. I bought this because I saw on the news that there is a war in the Ukraine.
  • Amazon, one of the largest online stores. I bought this because my family shops on Amazon and Prime Day was coming up.
  • JetBlue, an airline. I bought this because I love to travel.

I used Yahoo Finance and Google to help me make my investment choices.

I didn’t find any bonds or mutual funds I wanted to invest in this year, only stocks. I bought these when they were just about to go up and then sold them when they were about to go down. I’m in fourth place right now in the yearlong game. It’s ending soon so I’m not going to take any big risks.

I love the stock market. The Stock Market Game has changed my life and made me realize my love of investing. I want to invest as a career. One day when I apply to college to major in finance, it would be great to say, “When I was in fifth grade, I entered this investment essay contest and WON.”

For more information on the SIFMA Foundation, visit www.sifma.org/foundation.

For more information about InvestWrite, visit www.investwrite.org.

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