Students at Avondale Preparatory School in Kingston, Kahleel Hutchinson and Khalif Wright, emerged top performers in the first month of the Wizdom CRM Virtual Stock Market Game, hosted in collaboration with the Jamaica Stock Exchange (JSE).

On enrolment, each student was provided with US$10,000 in virtual funds for trading.

Kahleel and Khalif ended the first month with portfolio values of US$10,851 and US$10,292, respectively.

The students were among six who were recognised during an awards ceremony held at the JSE Headquarters on Harbour Street in Kingston, on March 25.

Kahleel thanked his teacher for introducing him to the game, noting that he has been having an enjoyable experience.

“The game is not that difficult once you understand it, because when I first joined, I had no clue what I was doing. I was just clicking on stuff, but after I played for like a week, I understood the game and I just started investing in large companies like Netflix and Tesla,” he said, adding that his strategy was to invest in multiple companies so that he could earn more profit.

Kahleel shared that he has encouraged many of his schoolmates to join the game and even helped a friend to move from last place to seventh.

His advice to students playing the game: “Remember, if it’s going down you sell it; if it’s going up you buy it. Always remember that. One more thing, don’t ever give up and always stay on your routine, because you don’t want to come off that routine and start losing money.”

Meanwhile, Khalif shared that in the early stages of the game, he was in 20^th place until he made a big trade which pushed him to second place.

“The impact and experience of the game is good. I thank Wizdom CRM and Jamaica Stock Exchange for the game and I thank my teacher for teaching me how to play the game, but the real thanks goes to my mother who is a financial business helper—she helped me with my stocks,” he said.

Some 575 students from 15 primary and preparatory schools across Jamaica were enrolled and trained in early February for the inaugural staging of the year-long competition.

An awards ceremony was held after the first month to boost interest in the game and going forward, awards will be presented quarterly.