Finance

Welcome to the world of finance! I have included several links that I encourage you to investigate to become familiar with investing your money. I hope some of them are helpful to you!

1. College Tuition Calculator by CNN -what I like about this page is that it shows you what you should expect your college bill to be. Also very interesting is the percentage of people who actually graduate in 4 years. So if your 4 year bill will be $80,000, but you need to add an extra 5th year on there, you are looking at a $100,000 bill. That is not easy to pay off, and it doesnt just go away on its own!

2. Mutual Fund Info from Suze Orman

3. What is a Mutual Fund? Basically its a large group of people's money all invested in different types of things, with hopes that everyone will end up with more money than they started with! Remember, with Mutual Funds there are fees and you have to pay taxes on the interest you make. But also remember this- if you just keep the money at home in a box, you wont make any interest at all! It's also possible that your investment will lose money. It's a risk! But your money is in the hands of experts, so its usually a risk worth taking.

Below is the information for INVESTOPEDIA... Here you will find the link to create your very own Investopedia account. You will get $250,000 virtual (pretend money) to invest in the stock market. You can work on this at home, during club, or whenever you have some free time.

TO SIGN UP, CLICK BELOW: http://accounts.investopedia.com/SignupMember.aspx?SignupType=member&site=Simulator&ReturnUrl=http://simulator.investopedia.com#axzz1kgStp4MF

// DISPLAY NAME: Here you will put your first name, middle initial, last initial, and the number 18 (because you are the class of 2018.) So if you are Robert Edward Smith, you would put RobertES18. Notice which letters are caps. Notice, no spaces! // // EMAIL: In this field you will type 18#### (same # deal as above!) followed by @weatherlysd.org So, 181234@weatherlysd.org would be an example of an acceptable email address. No spaces, no dashed, no caps. //

// Are you a financial expert: Choose the "no" bubble. //

// PASSWORD: Your password is an 8 digit number, but its easy to remember because it's your birthday!! __But use only numbers__, not words. So, if your birthday is June 1, 1997 your password would be: 06011997. Any time there is a 1 digit number (like for Jan-Sept, please place a 0 in front, as shown in the example above.) //

// Please remember, if it ever requests personal information about you, I'd like you to __not__ provide it. Not that anything bad would happen, but I dont want junk mail coming your way! // // Choose JOIN OTHER GAME. // // Game name: wasd2018 // // Game number 189766 // // PW: mascot year??? See Mr. McGee for help getting specific pw!!! //

http://accounts.investopedia.com/login.aspx?returnUrl=http://simulator.investopedia.com/default.aspx#axzz1pfMI4PmJ//
 * //__ ONCE YOU ARE SIGNED UP: __//**

Remember, your email is 18****@weatherlysd.org and your password is your birthday mmddyyyy.

Your best bet to find the STOCK SYMBOL of each company is to Google it. So go to [|www.google.com] and simply type "stock symbol _" and instead of that line just type the name of the company you want to buy. Google is sooooo smart that often times you wont have to click on anything to get your answer, it will just appear, and even show you the current value per share. Not bad! Its easier than using the one thats built into investopedia. Now, go get rich! Buy and sell as often as you want. You can keep the stock for just a few hours if you want to, wait for it to go up in value and sell it all!

__ Your goal is to make as much money as you can by May 15, 2013. You can buy, sell, get advice from family, research on your own, whatever works. __

YOUR 1 PAGE THEME: __//The title should be centered, bold and 24 point Times New Roman//__

__//double space the body with 12 point Arial.//__

//Paragraph 1: __Explain why the stock market exists today. Include idea of buying low, selling when the stock rises.__// //Paragraph 2: __Explain the stock market crash and briefly mention the Great Depression.__// //Paragraph 3: __You should include 2 or 3 companies that you are buying stock in and give an explanation of why you are buying them. Ex. "__//__My first company I am buying stock in is Ford. I think they are developing new cars and technology to increase gas mileage and many consumers will want to purchase a new Ford."//__ Paragraph 4:__ Conclusion. Do you think people can get rich quick, or is it better to invest slowly but surely over long periods of time? Do you plan on investing when you grow up and have real money?