Day Seven

Today is the last day of the market watch competition which is probably a good thing for my hypothetical cash supply. Although the markets won't close for another hour and a half, I think I'm unlikely to surpass my sixth place standing,. Unfortunately, my Ford scheme has failed me and I'm out around $1500. What I perceived as a wise investment served me fairly well yesterday, but today has knocked me out of contention for the coveted fifth place position. Ford's disappointing return is a reflection of the current global market place as feelings of insecurity grow. I attribute these growing fears partially to the crisis in the Euro zone- particularly the apparent instability of Spanish banks. As the competition closes I realize what this experience has best taught me. Above all else, I now have a better grasp of the market's overall volatility- specifically as the relates to periods of instability in the U.S. and abroad. While I traded only in U.S. markets, my stocks were greatly impacted by economics instability in Europe demonstrating the impact of foreign markets on domestic ones.

Day Six

I've pretty much accepted that, with 16 hours of competition remaining, I'll finish in the bottom half of the Market Watch rankings. When I realized this in third period Study hall/Physics, I thought I might as well just do the thing right and spend my remaining $54,000. Given the short-term and hypothetical nature of our competition, I decided to invest all my money in Ford. Despite the split-second nature of this decision, it was not made without logical reasoning. As my family's TV blared news all Memorial Day Weekend, I picked up on a few predictions for the market's opening today. Analysts expressed optimism in for as, like I noted in my precious post, Moody's has raised their rating. I considered one of the most basic laws of demand we learned early in microeconomics- that optimism in a product increases demand. I applied this theory to Ford, and do determined that the value of its stock would likely increase significantly. In retrospective, this wasn't one of my best ideas. While I did make a fair amount of money, it wasn't that significant and now I'm broke and still in sixth place. 

Day 5

I may be down over $400, but I still have over half my money so I'm hopeful I can eventually achieve a sixth place standing. I've lost the bulk of my money to Dell but my stock in Amazon has also brought me down. This surprised me as I had expected their share prices to increase given the usual summertime increase in book sales. Although the market will, of course, be closed for the nest few days, I'm anticipating my next trades. I think I'll purchase Ford stock as Moodys Analytics expressed optimism in Ford's future and upgraded their credit. With an improved perception in Ford, I predict an increase in the demand for and price of their stocks. Hopefully this trade will help compensate for all I've lost through my shares in Dell and Amazon.

Day Four

Today, NASDAQ experienced greater drops than other domestic exchanges. Like NASDAQ, I have delt largely in tech stocks and so today- also like NASDAQ- I experienced losses. A few days ago, while wondering how to make my comeback from last place, I decided to invest in the generally stable technology sector. As a small-time spender, I was hesitant to spend too much. I had narrowed my field down to Dell and Hewlett-Packard. Unfortunately, I chose Dell. This choice came on the eve of Dell's report that second-quarter revenue had not met the expectations of analysts. Predictably, Dell stock fell 17%. Like we learned in introductory microeconomics, a change in expectations causes change in demand. When expectations in Dell grew dire, the value and demand for their stock plummeted. In contrast, HP stock has risen drastically. My portfolio is pretty much the summation of these split-decisions which more often than not lead to losses. On the bright side, I still have over half my money left, so maybe things will turn around.

Day Three

While I may not have anticipated dropping below sixth place yesterday, today I embrace both my seventh place standing and the certainty that I will never be a stockbroker.
The instability of my personal stocks is, naturally, a reflection of the market at-large. More so than the past two days, today demonstrated just how volatile the market can be as the DJI fell nearly 200 points before rebounding to end just over 6 points down. Such volatility comes with what I consider a logical explanation; instability in European markets.
Early in the day, speculation circulated that Europe's financial crisis would spread to other world markets. Financial instability in Greece especially prompted these fears, as doubts that it would remain on the Euro solidified.  Like a self-fulfilling prophecy, these fears promptly caused a drop in stocks across the globe.
Fortunately, after spending nearly half the day plummeting, stocks values began to rise. Likely, news that leaders of France and Italy had loosely constructed plans to use region-wide bonds to bolster Europe's financial system reassured investors, buttressing the market.

Day Two

There is something almost reassuring about last place that comes through knowing you can't really do any worse.
 Today in class, as I sat comfortably in 6th place, I tuned my attention towards diversification. I purchased shares from all sectors of the S&P 500.  This actually wasn't an unprofitable decision. I ended up posting gains in six out of ten of them.
The least profitable of these requisite stocks- at least today- was that of the energy sector. That seems logical. Although the U.S. economy appears to be gradually improving, the Euro Zone remains unstable and so the world markets remain unstable. Any time this happens, losses can be expected across sectors with the energy sector, often the cornerstone of others, in an especially vulnerable position. I lost a lot of my money today by increasing my share in Apple, whose stock dropped steadily throughout the day.
While I'm not overly concerned with my nearly .5% loss yet, tomorrow I'll reevaluate my purchases and perhaps sell some of my less than profitable stocks.

Day One of Market Watch

As a very cautious person, even when dealing with imaginary money, I felt risky making my four transactions totaling just over $7000. Then, I realized nearly everyone else has spent more than half their cash. So far, I've bought 5 shares from Apple, 10 from Amazon, 5 from CME Group, and went really crazy buying 15 shares of Mosaic. I really don't know much about stocks having little interest in something so speculative. After a lengthy consideration, I decided to bust out almost $3000 on Apple mainly because of their apparent domination in the market for MP3 players and the music download industry as well as the number of times the company's profitability has been mentioned in class. Given the general increase in book sales expected in summer months, I chose to purchase Amazon shares. Next, I bought shares from CME Group, a company that owns and operates large derivatives and futures exchanges in New York and Chicago. I figured that since CME deals largely in the grain market, it would be a fairly wise investment decision at this time of year. I surprised my self towards the period's end by indulging in one of my few allotted speculative, "fun" stocks. I chose to invest in Mosaic, the professed "leading producer of concentrated phosphate and potash crop nutrients!"There wasn't too much reason behind this purchase. I guess the idea of concentrated phosphate lulled me into a questionable sense of security.