Senior School News
ASX Sharemarket Game 2020
The ASX Sharemarket Game was played by students in Year 9 Commerce over ten weeks through to 20May. There were over 17,000 syndicates involved nationally. Students were given $50,000 of fantasy money to invest in real companies, the prices for which changed in real-time. The winner is the syndicate with the most money at the end of the game.
We are pleased to announce that the syndicate consisting of Oliver Heavey and Alex Rooney finished in 10th Place nationally and in 5th Place in New South Wales. Despite a turbulent and volatile stock market during this period, Oliver and Alex managed to more than double their money with their portfolio increasing from $50,000 to $101,081.28. They massively outperformed the sharemarket as a whole as indicated by the All Ordinaries Index which rose by only 5% during this period. In other words, Oliver and Alex’s share portfolio increased by a margin that was 20 times the increase in the sharemarket as a whole. This is an outstanding effort by any measure.
The following additional points can be made:
- Oliver and Alex’s best-performing company was Afterpay which increased in value by just over 500%. They bought in at the best possible time for this company with their original investment of $11,600 growing to over $58,000.
- Overall, seven of the nine companies that were in their share portfolio made money. Their second-best performer was child care provider G8 Education which made over $6,000. Other good performers were online retailer Kogan (over $2,300) and gold producer Northern Star Resources ($984).
- Oliver and Alex put a lot of thought into deciding which shares to buy. Child care providers have benefited from the provision of free child care (though admittedly a lot of providers are struggling), while gold is a tried and true safe-haven investment in difficult economic times. Even their biggest loss-maker Coles ($555.50) was bought on the basis that the supermarkets were doing well because of the panic buying.
There were also several other strong performances in the class with nine of the eleven syndicates in profit and seven of the syndicates finishing above the national median of $51,900. The second and third best syndicates in the school both finished in the top 20% of competitors: Connor Barber and Kemiel Dewnath on $57.324.29, Brayden Achurch and Emmanuel Ilich on $57,263. There were several other strong performances.
Congratulations to all participants, especially to Oliver Heavey and Alex Rooney on their truly exceptional achievement of finishing in 10th Place nationally.
Mr Peter Baz
Commerce Teacher
Year 8 Mandatory Technology
This week, Year 8 Mandatory Technology classes have been developing their ability to handle livestock for their unit on GPS (Global Positioning Sysytem) Cows. Our cattle are all on holidays out in the back paddocks, so the students are using our lovely Corriedale sheep instead.
The boys from 8MTG and 8MTB were learning how to move our breeding ewes through the sheep yards. They also practised their skills in catching, restraining and sitting sheep. This is not always an easy task when the sheep are much bigger than the students! Expert advice was on hand; the Year 10 Agriculture class was available to offer assistance.
After demonstrating the correct technique, the Year 10’s then provided one-on-one training and support for the Year 8 students. The collaborative learning between Year 8 and Year 10 was a wonderful expression of the Marist Pillar ‘Love of Work’.
Ms Mahoney and I were very proud of the students and we enjoyed the opportunity to work together.
Emily James
Agriculture and Technology Teacher