Activision Blizzard Article (Week 10)

This article describes how many of the musical games such as Rock Band and Guitar Hero have lost their poplarity this year. With Rock Band IV being a game created by Activison Blizzard, this is a disconcerting issue. This decline in sales is evident in the fact that Guitar Hero III sold $1.4 billion, while guitar hero IV only grossed $500,000. Activision still has hope in devoted fans as well as various extras being created for future sequels.

Jobless Claims Fall

Recently the number reported number of unemployed Americans dropped. This drop came as a surprise to many economists. The majority of wall street economists thought that they would see an increase in jobless Americans. If this trend continues, we will see our economy start to reaelly turn around. People will have more money to put back into the economy and the hard times will be behind us.

Portfolio (Week 10)

During this week our portfolio took an interesting turn. We decided to short sell in Toyota Motors. We decided to do this because Toyota Motors seemed to be doing quite badly in the stock market. We lost $220.39 on this short sell, thus making this decision seem like a bad one. Overall though, we had a net gain of $311.91, resulting in a portfolio value of $77,369.97.

What I've Learned

I have learned many things because of the stock market game, but I mostly learned from the numerous blog posts that my group and created. Our group always exchanged jobs at who would do which requirement, but I really like doing the portfolio. The most important thing i learned from the stock market game was to research companies before investing in them. I also learned that it is better to invest long-term instead of short-term because then you have a better opportunity to gain more profit from your investment. We researched all of the companies we invested in, but it didn't seem to completely work. If I were to change anything, I woudn't have invested in Activision Blizzard or Hasboro. Both of these companies made us lose money even though we believed that they would create at least some profit. I would still keep our Verizon stock because it was very profitable to our portfolio. In real life, however, I would not invest in this way at all. Instead, I would invest in more low-risk companies in order to protect myself from heavy losses. Overall, this game has taught me how to play the market to my advantage by using research and common sense to make educated and sensible investment decisions.

Things I Have Learned in the Stock Market Game

This game taught me that the stock market isn't something to do unless you understand what you're doing, and even what can happen. It is a very tricky bussiness to get into. Even some of the experts get it wrong sometimes. I've learned that you can't expect to make money right away. Investing i the stock market is a process that takes a lot of time. I learned that you should research the companies and also the competitors before investing. Anticipating the launch of a new product would be something to look for, and a product that a competitor puts out to compete with your company. Checking on the overall economy is a smart idea that i learned too. Seeing wheather people are buying, selling, or if the NASDAQ has dropped are things you constantly should pay attention to if you're really going to get involved in the stock market. I'm glad i got to learn all of these different things about the stock market through this game, it really gave me a little experience of what the real thing is like.

What I've Learn About The Stock Market Game

All together, I had a real interesting group for our game. And luckily, we chose some real good short-term stocks. The most knowledgeable thing that I learned from the Stock Market Game was that even though the objective was based on short sales of stocks, in reality short-term is not the way to go. Long-term stocks are less riskier and offer way more financial potential (profit). For long term, I would have keep my eggs all in one basket because it gives the stock more time to bounce back from any loss. All together, unlike some groups I would not have changed the stocks our group invested in, they actually did fairly well. However, we should not have short sold Toyota Motors, by doing this it brought us down. This simple mistake of selling can also give a negative affect when it comes to stocks. It taught me a valuable lesson, that purchasing stocks is not only a risk, but selling can often be just as equal of a risk. Overall, this game has taught me key concepts of the stock market and how it works, that will help me someday when it comes to the real-life version of my own Stock Market Game.

Review of the market (Week 10)

The NASDAQ fell during the week period, starting out at $2212.10 and dropping to a low point of $2180.05. Although the overall trend was downward, the last day it seen a jump to $2211.69. Overall the Dow Jones had a downside week as well.  It started out the week at $10501.48 and exponentially continued to fall. The worst day coming on the 16th, where it dropped off to $10308.26. By the end the Dow Jones reached $10328.89, a great difference from the beginning of the week. At last, the S&P 500 had a trend very similar to the NASDAQ and Dow Jones, a downfall. It started off at $1114.11 and ended at $1102.47.