By Jamie Wong, Staff Writer
The Mills Investment Club started as a Discord server. During quarantine, Daniel Gao (12) and his friends used the space to discuss stocks and finance. After returning from distance learning, Gao, the club’s president, thought “maybe I should do this in person.” Better yet, he noticed that Mills did not have a finance club at the time, so in September 2021, he decided to fill that need by founding the Investment Club.
Gao and Vice President Jeremy Pan (12) teach club members about topics like cryptocurrency, stocks, and how to invest during weekly meetings. Last year, the club’s curriculum was largely determined by Gao’s and Pan’s own research, but this year, the Investment Club is using StreetFins to educate their members. Pan says, “We’re hoping to get newer members more engaged. By partnering with StreetFins, a local student-run financial literacy program, we get access to their lesson plans and important guest speakers to improve our curriculum for newer members.”
The Investment Club is also excited to participate in the Wharton Global High School Investment Competition for the first time. This competition, run by the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, invites teams from around the world to compete in creating the most profitable investment portfolio for a hypothetical client. For example, teams may be instructed that their client is interested in environmentally friendly companies and be required to find appropriate investments. In this challenge, groups must ultimately build their portfolios based on the client’s wishes while maximizing their earnings.
The Wharton Investment Competition takes place online for ten weeks from mid-September to early December, but Gao says that the team started preparing long before by paying attention to the stock market and current events that may impact it. Armed with the knowledge they’ve gathered, Investment Club members come together to decide which stocks to buy for their competition portfolio. “Since I’m the team leader, I ask my team what stocks they want to buy and for what reason,” Gao mentions. When the team reaches a decision on which stocks to purchase, they do so through Wharton’s stock simulator. At the end of the ten weeks, each group in the competition produces a final report on how the stocks in their portfolios performed and why they chose those specific stocks for their client.
Rankings are based on a team’s earnings and the reasoning and strategy outlined in their final report. The top 50 teams advance to the semifinals, which are held both online and in person in Pennsylvania. Gao and Pan are optimistic about the club’s success in the competition. Gao says, “I think we will perform very well because our team is stacked.” Out of 5,000 teams, Gao would be pleased to be in the top 200 or 300, but he aspires to be a semifinalist. Likewise, Pan expressed confidence in his team’s ability: “Other teams have advisors well versed in economics, but we try to provide any information to our team. Through our own research, I believe we can reach their level of knowledge.“
After the Wharton competition concludes, Gao and Pan aim to keep new members interested, as the club is largely composed of freshmen. Pan hopes “new members will remain active and have fun,” and “take away something to use in the future”. One idea Gao is considering is holding competitions like the Wharton Competition amongst individuals. Rather than competing in teams, individual club members can challenge each other to see who can create the best portfolio.
Gao stresses that the financial literacy Investment Club members develop is an important skill to have for the future: “[In Investment Club,] you learn how to take care of your own investments after high school. In college, nobody is going to teach you so it’s better to learn now. The earlier you start, the more compound interest [you earn].” One way to think about it is that by joining the Investment Club, you are really making an investment into your future.
The Investment Club welcomes anyone who is interested in investment to visit Room 211 (Ms. Alberta’s room) on Fridays during the second half of lunch. For more club information, follow their Instagram (@mills_investment_club) and join the Discord (link in Instagram bio)!
