Charting their future

Ask anyone who has a 401(k) account, and they'll tell you -- these are trying times. Market volatility, an unstable international scene and corporate scandals are making investing a challenge.

A challenge for everyone but a group of fifth-graders, that is. Three students in Terry Slaven's fifth-grade class recently finished second overall out of 130 teams nationally in a stock market game. In 10 weeks, the three students -- Tessa Laughlin, Kendra Johnson and Theresa Mary Van Hyning -- turned $100,000 into $113,613.

They did it by doing some research, with a little help from the Incredible Hulk and Spiderman.

"Forty-six percent of our stock was in Marvel [Comics] because we knew Daredevil was coming out and Spiderman was out and the Hulk was coming out," Van Hyning said. "We thought it would be a good stock to buy."

That it was, along with Yahoo! stock, which helped carry their portfolio.

"We went to Yahoo! to see some graphs of some other stocks, and that's when we saw that Yahoo! was a good stock to buy," Laughlin said.

The three girls researched all their stocks before they bought or sold. They lost some money with Wells Fargo stock, but they held on to it, hoping it would rebound. It turned out to be one of the only losers in their portfolio.

When the game began, the girls had a plan -- invest in MSN, the Microsoft Network. But once they did a little research, they knew they didn't want their entire portfolio based on one stock, so, like good investors, they diversified. They worked on the Internet researching potential stocks to buy, and only bought them when they agreed.

"Kendra's computer went somewhere else, so we would have to go over to her and tell her what the stocks were doing and talk about them," Van Hyning said. "Everyone else wanted to know our secrets, too, but we wouldn't tell them. Not until after it was over."

Johnson said they had another strategy, one that involved a lot of legwork, literally.

"I went into some stores and if there was a lot of people in there, I thought the stores were probably doing pretty good and looked at their stocks," Johnson said.

As a school, Pioneer Peak had a great showing. Slaven and Marcia Barrett each had teams make money in the simulation. Pioneer Peak fifth-graders accounted for four of the top 30 teams, including a sixth-place finish. Of the 129 teams, 83 made money. Laughlin, Johnson and Van Hyning led the way, and they said they were excited when the game ended and they realized just how well they did.

"We were really happy. It was like, 'we're cool,'" Van Hyning said.

When asked if they would like to become financial advisors or investors in the future, there was a long silence.

"Uh, I don't think so," Laughlin said.

"I want to be an NBA basketball player," Johnson said.

"I have a lot of career things I want to think about," Van Hyning said.

But they plan to at least keep an eye on the market.

"If somebody I know, like my mom, wants to get in the stock market, maybe I'll do it again," Van Hyning said.