YEAR 10 FINANCIAL LITERACY
By Year 10 students Charlie Barnes, Kieran McMahon and Oscar Hambleton
This semester a brand-new course was offered to year 10 students called Financial Literacy.
Many of us had set expectations for this subject, as we had been informed of the course
outline and what it had to offer.
At the beginning of the semester we were taught ‘power words’ which we would then use
often throughout the course and learnt the basics of spending money. We later went on to
learn about interest rates (compound, simple, variable and fixed). We studied the share
market, where we learnt about the different types of shares and companies, the cost of
buying and selling shares and how to judge performance of shares so we know when to buy
and when to sell.
We participated in an online simulation of the share market against other students, the ASX
game. The ASX Game is a game in which participants get $50,000 in hypothetical money to
trade in the ASX 200 Index. The ASX stands for the Australian Securities Exchange and the
200 Index is the top 200 companies in the ASX. The period in which trading occurred was
the 10th of March to the 17th of May. 16,691 syndicates participated in the game from
schools all across Australia. The top stocks were A2M - A2 Milk, which went up 45.81%,
followed by BAL - Bellamy’s, up 35.7%. The worst performing stocks were QIN - Quintis,
down -79%, and TRS - The Reject Shop, down over -56%.
Team ‘Riley and Samin’ who are also in our financial literacy class, topped the school leader
board with a portfolio value of $54,509.50, a total profit of $4,509.50. The winner of the
competition was team ‘Jarance’ with a portfolio value of $60,901.19.
After completing the ASX Sharemarket game we learnt about financial principles that are
used in everyday lives. We were given scenarios and did an activity on buying a car and
getting it insured. This helped us gain an insight into our future.
Overall we believe this was a great course and seeing it was run for the first time it can only
get better. We recommend this subject for any year 10’s in coming years as it teaches you
important skills which you will use later in life.
ASX FINDINGS
By Riley Marshall
Before the game, I analysed the graphs of the stock market and looked upon which companies I expected to make the most profit. I also looked for the upcoming companies and upcoming products. I made sure that I always had shares in at least five companies.
I invested in A2M, 1 of the top 3 performing companies during the game at one point reaching a gain of $3800 which helped me rocket into the top 500 out of 20,000 as most people had trouble earning money with many going into the negative after the first day. Then inch by inch, I clawed my way into the top 50 for Victoria and the top 200 for the whole game. The best position I reached during the game was 111th and 23rd in Victoria but unfortunately a few days before the competition finished I made some bad decisions. Instead of finishing with an estimated $59,000 an increase of $9,000, I made a bad investment and ended up finishing 54,509 reaching 103rd out of Victoria and 455th out of the whole competition.
Tips: stay with 5 - 7 companies so you can keep an eye on all of the companies you have shares in. With any more than 7, it becomes quite hard to make money. Buy a lot of shares instead of small sections as you lose money with a $20 fee to the broker. Don't sell shares if they are negative.
Shumaila Paracha - Year 10 Financial Literacy Teacher