Four Year 12 boys have reached the regional final of a highly regarded national investment competition.
QE’s team, named the Naked Economists and comprising Ralph Flint, Paul Jung, Nathaniel Liu and Anthony Zhang, were competing against more than 30,000 students from across the UK in the ifs Student Investor Challenge. They made more than £40,000 trading in virtual shares in just three months of activity – out-performing the FTSE 100 share index in the process.
The team will now compete at the South East England regional final in London in March. If successful at that stage, they will have the opportunity of progressing to the national final in April, where the prize is an all expenses paid educational trip to New York and £2,000 for the School.
The competition, run by ifs University College and supported by Bloomberg, provides teams with £100,000 of virtual money to buy and sell shares in FTSE 100 companies. It gives teams of four students aged 14 to 19 years old the opportunity to experience the world of share-dealing and investing in the stock market. Now in its 20th year, the competition is the largest of its kind in the UK and is also open to international students.
“The competition gives our boys an ideal opportunity to gain experience of making investment decisions,” said QE’s Head of Economics, Liane Ryan. “It is only the third time that a team from QE has progressed to this stage of the competition; the boys are to be congratulated in overcoming such strong competition thus far.”
Alison Pask, Vice Principal at ifs University College said: “The competition also introduces competitors to core concepts such as risk, reward and diversification. This is a real achievement and many congratulations go to the team from Queen Elizabeth’s School.”
ifs University College describes itself as the “university for financial education”. It has a remit to provide the financial services industry with a skilled, effective and competent workforce whilst also promoting a better understanding of finance amongst consumers and young people.