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=Introduction to the Stock Market For Teacher and Students=

Are you looking to teach students about the stock market? Maybe your after the basic concepts or some lesson plans that might help teach this topic.

Maybe you've seen the stock market simulators that sites like Bloomberg provide but aren't quite sure its right for your students or classroom. Creating and managing student accounts can be time consuming.

A stock market simulator that lets students buy and sell virtual stock is the ideal tool for students. A student can watch their portfolio grow or shrink day after day. You as a teacher can ask questions of them like:


 * Have you created a portfolio that is diversified? If one market segment declines, will all of the others?
 * Have you researched the companies that you have bought shares in?
 * What are the trends telling you about the companies you have purchased.

Having an educational tool that supports these types of scenarios can be invaluable.

Getting Started
Using a tool such as Student Stock Trader a teacher just needs to sign up. The signup process will create a new game. The teacher can change some of the settings like:
 * The starting balance for all students
 * The transaction fee's that apply
 * The start and end dates
 * A join password (optional)

The teacher will also be given a unique URL that they can share with their students. When a student visits this URL, the student will be asked for a display name and the optional join password. It's up to the teacher how students choose their display name. Perhaps the class is broken into groups? or each student uses a display format like.

Once the student enters the game, they will be given a starting balance and they are ready to start researching companies and purchasing virtual stock.

Each student is represented on the leader board, so the class can track the students or groups that gain the most value as well as the students that perform poorly.

Ideas

 * Once students have started the game, those with the highest gains should explain their strategies to the rest of the classroom.
 * Students could pretend they are a fictional financial advisor and that they are building a portfolio for this client. They could produce a report on how they have diversified the stock across a number of different areas.

Other
Student Stock Trader has a mobile application so that students can take their learnings away from the classroom. They can make trades quickly and easily via their phone or tablet. This makes [|learning the stock market fun and easy].

Links
Student Stock Trader