By Amy Higgins
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Springboro High School sophomores Kevin Flora and Eddie Welch (right) won the spring session of the Stock Market Game, beating more than 400 other teams from Ohio. (Michael E. Keating photo) | ZOOM |

SPRINGBORO - The key lesson learned from the Stock Market Game?

"The market goes up and down every day - you have to have patience," Eddie Welch said.

Eddie's patience paid off. He and fellow Springboro High School sophomore Kevin Flora won the spring session of the market simulation game, turning a mock $100,000 into $217,915 in just 10 weeks.

Eddie and Kevin beat more than 400 other high school teams across Ohio by investing in airline stocks.

In the middle school division, students from the Miami Valley School placed first among Southwest Ohio teams by returning 35 percent on their $100,000 investment.

Mike Salemme won the adult division, also using airline stocks to more than double his money. Salemme beat 36 other adult players by ending with $218,358.

Coordinated in Ohio by the Economics Center for Education & Research at the University of Cincinnati, the Stock Market Game is a decades-old program of the Securities Industry Foundation for Economic Education.

THE CLOSING BELL

Top five in the high school team division: Team Name Portfolio 1 Los Hombres (Springboro HS) $217,915 2 Yaks (Ripley-Union HS) $166,550 3 MilBar (Springboro HS) $165,761 4 Gandalf (Anderson HS) $160,436 5 Elysiam (Springboro HS) $155,797 Top five in the high school average division: High School Portfolio 1 Springboro High School $117,298 2 Waynesville High School $112,032 3 Ripley-Union-Lewis HS $111,841 4 Northwest High School $110,063 5 Loveland High School $108,111 Top five in the middle school division: Team Name Portfolio 1 71 (Miami Valley) $135,000 2 18 (Liberty Jr.) $133,319 3 1059 (Our Lady of Visitation) $130,563 4 Stockomatics (Mariemont Jr.) $128,902 5 1058 (Our Lady of Visitation) $127,235 Top five in the middle school average division: Middle School Portfolio 1 Our Lady of Visitation $118,620 2 Mariemont Junior High School $112,524 3 St. Dominic School $110,686 4 The Miami Valley School $109,425 5 Robert E. Lucas Intermediate School $108,937 Top five in the adult division: Name Portfolio 1 Mike Salemme $218,358 2 Russell Curtis $162,197 3 Michael Church $134,842 4 Ricard Hayes $124,113 5 Barbara Buchholz $121,076

On one level, it's just a fantasy competition to see which team can make the most money in simulated investments over 10 weeks. On another, it's a valuable learning experience about how the stock market and American economy work.

In the past 10 weeks, student teams have researched stocks, built portfolios, bought on margin (with "loaned" money) and even sold short ("borrowing" a stock and selling it, hoping to buy it back later at a lower price and giving it back to the lender).

Wall Street, during that time, continued to be volatile - with war in Iraq, mixed earnings reports and rising unemployment all pulling stock prices in different directions.

Airlines have been especially volatile. When the Stock Market Game began in late February, Delta Air Lines and Continental Airlines were trading near their lowest levels in decades.

War was pending, and threatening to cut consumers' demand for travel and raise the carriers' fuel costs. United Airlines was in bankruptcy; American Airlines was talking about it.

Still, Delta and Continental looked like good buys to Kevin and Eddie, who bought 10,000 shares of each.

"We thought they were getting pretty low," Kevin said. "We thought with vacations, good weather, spring break, they'd go back up."

But that took patience. When analysts downgraded the airline stocks in early March because of projected war losses, Delta lost 22 percent, and Continental dropped 15 percent.

Kevin and Eddie's team, which they named Los Hombres, fell to 343rd place, fourth from the last, among Greater Cincinnati teams.

But they made the right call for the "long term," as airlines started a slow march back up, and Los Hombres began a steady climb in the rankings.

When they took the lead during the last week of the Stock Market Game, they knocked Springboro classmates Milissa Corbin and Jenna Barnes out of the lead. As team MilBar, Milissa and Jenna had been in first place for four of the previous 10 weeks having bought mostly Duke Energy Corp. near its lowest price since 1989.

MilBar finished in third place.

Springboro High School ended the game last week with 10 teams ranked in the top 15 and with its portfolio average among all its 31 teams outpacing the portfolio average at any other participating high school.

Springboro's teams perform so well in the Stock Market Game because its teachers and administration make a commitment to the game, said Michael Rado, Los Hombres' teacher. He and fellow business teacher Rick Creager encourage students to check their portfolios, watch the market and read the Wall Street Journal every day.

"We don't want to be second," Rado said. "We want to be a first-place team."

E-mail ahiggins@enquirer.com