A Wealth of Information

About Wall Street Business and Investments

“How would you invest 100,000 dollars?”

This is the question for the Sayville High School students in Mr. Chad Cross’ Wall Street: Business and Investments class who are participating in the SIFMA Foundation’s Stock Market Game ^TM. As part of the 10-week session, the students must invest a hypothetical $100,000, with the goal of creating a top-performing portfolio.  In addition, they will be competing against both classmates and students from other schools.

Consulting a financial planner would be the first step for getting sound advice.

To launch the first “trading day” for the Stock Market Game, Mr. Cross invited Certified Financial Planner Gil Cardillo, President of Peconic Asset Planning of Riverhead, with over 25 years in the Financial Services Industry and a native Long Islander, to be the guest speaker. The goal was to provide the students with real-world examples of investing while learning academic concepts.  Stocks, mutual funds, bonds, ETF’s, ADR’s, P/E ratio, yield, types of retirement plans, risks tolerance, diversification, and market capitalization were among the topics discussed.

“The experience for the students was excellent!” says Mr. Cross. “The feedback I received from the students the following day was that the lesson was fun, a learning experience and that Mr. Cardillo was a true professional in the investment field. The students were able to get first-hand information on types of investments from a professional. He related well with the students, he had a great rapport by creating an interactive learning environment where students had to answer questions or ask questions they prepared for homework. He gave a prize to every student that answered or asked a question.”

Among the questions posed by the students during Mr. Cardillo’s visit was Pam Hass’s query, “Is it ever a good idea to place all or a good portion of one’s disposable income into a single stock?” “How often are dividends distributed?” asked Chris Rupp while Caitlin Nolan questioned, “If you put in a limit order and the stock never goes down, what happens to your money?” Meantime Robby Colarusso wanted to know, “What percentage of companies are large, medium, and small caps?”

Mr. Cross could not have been happier or prouder of his student’s interest in Mr. Cardillo’s presentation that proved indeed to be a “wealth” of information about investments.