Blade School Stock Contest is under way

The Blade's School Stock Contest is under way, and technology firms and local companies are the top choices of the student participants.

Technology companies Apple Inc., Google Inc., Netflix Inc., and Amazon.com Inc. were among the top picks for the annual 12-week contest. The Andersons Inc. and Libbey Inc. were the most popular local choices.

Students typically stick with companies they are familiar with that will perform well on the market, said Matthew Faltys, vice president of Fifth Third Bank of Northwest Ohio.

"The first thing is the kids have a tendency to flock to companies and products they know, which makes all the sense in the world," he said. "Whether or not it fares well depends on the cycle the stock is in.

"If they chose wisely and looked at the current momentum, they probably will do OK."

The contest runs through April 27, with 156 teams from classrooms in northwest Ohio and southeast Michigan. Their goal is to create the best-performing stock portfolio.

Each team chose four stocks worth at least $5 a share. They were given a hypothetical $40,000 budget to purchase the shares, with the money allocated evenly among the four stocks.

They can change their stocks March 16 — a one-time opportunity during the contest.

The team with the portfolio that grows the most will receive $250 for the students and $250 for the school. Second place will receive $250 for the school, and third place gets $100 for the school. The prizes can be cash or gift certificates.

The contest is sponsored by The Blade's Newspaper in Education program, Fifth Third Bank, and the University of Toledo, which calculates the results.

Jennifer Hoel, who teaches financial algebra to seniors and juniors at Springfield High School, said the contest came at an opportune moment. The class wrapped up its chapter on the stock market in January.

"It's a course for college-bound students," she said. "We are trying to give them more of an application of their math skills."

One of Mrs. Hoel's teams, Cowbell, chose Apple, Google, Georgia Gulf Corp., and Yahoo! Inc. She said the choices were based on several weeks of research and a collective decision among the group's six members.

Bo Evarts' eighth-grade honors algebra class at Rossford Junior High School came up with similar picks. He said his students were particularly excited about Apple because of iPhone 5 rumors.

"I tell them that I've done this for many years and you don't want to pick plain, normal stocks," he said. "We're trying to find ones that win a contest in three months and they need to be riskier. [Technology] is one of the sectors they were looking at. We especially were looking at technology ones that will probably do well."

Contact Kris Turner at: kturner@theblade.com or 419-724-6103.