Our fantastic day out was to the Stock Market Challenge at the University of Edinburgh on Thursday 18 November 2010. There were 27 teams from Edinburgh and the Lothians. Our team members were: Louis Luke (3G3), Bethany Quirk (3L2), Gemma Robertson (3G1), Kerri Scambler (3L1) and Robbie Watson (3G1). We were the team that were picked from the S3 Business Management classes, after a competition using the classroom version of the Challenge.

In the Stock Market Challenge there were 5 days (25 minutes in real time) where we had to compete to earn the most money from our investments. Every team started out with £13,400 worth of different shares and euros. The teams were made up of 5 roles: the Finance Manager, the Investment Analyst, the Media Analyst, the Floor Trader Buyer and the Floor Trader Seller. When we were buying and selling we had to buy when the price was low and sell when the price was high. We bought 40,000 shares of Sago (a company) at £500 and sold them when they were high. At the end of all 5 days we doubled our money and made an overall of £80,300, and came 5th out of all 27 schools.

We all enjoyed the challenge. The skills that we demonstrated were teamwork, taking risks, communication and decision making. We look forward to continuing to use the classroom version of the Stock Market Challenge throughout our Standard Grade Business Management course.