ATLANTA — The way stock markets performed this fall, it was enough to make even the most seasoned investors queasy. Gains were quickly offset by losses — up on interest rate cuts, down on credit crunch news, up on employment news, down on energy costs.

Despite the bumpy ride, students at Effingham County High School took no chances, doing the research, crunching the numbers, and making wise enough investing choices to win the Stock Market Game for Effingham County schools.  

Advised by their teacher Sharon Palis, students Eonia Griffin and Raven Leverett took their hypothetical start-up investment of $100,000 and turned it into a portfolio with a value of $105,488.  

Fourth through 12th-grade students play the Stock Market Game each spring and fall semester for 10 weeks, researching publicly-traded companies on the Internet, reading business publications, and crunching numbers to select stocks. The team from each school district or geographic region for independent schools with the highest portfolio value wins at the end of 10 weeks wins.

Fall 2007 and spring 2008 winners will be honored at the Stock Market Game awards luncheon on May 6 at the Georgia Freight Depot in Atlanta.              

More than 40,000 students in public and independent schools participate in the Stock Market Game in Georgia each year.  GCEE has worked for the past 34 years to bring financial literacy and economic education to schools around the state.

Georgia’s Stock Market Game is supported by the Atlanta Society of Financial Analysts, the Bank of America, the Foundation for Investor Education, the Georgia Securities Association, INVESCO, Morgan Stanley, Primerica/Citigroup Foundation, and the Securities Industry Association/ Southern District.  To learn more, visit the Georgia Council on Economic Education Web site at www.gcee.org.