One good thing about being so technologically advanced these days is that there are simulations for literally everything, including the stock market. We recently started a stock exchange simulation on Investopedia for a project in my accounting class.

At first, I was incredibly excited at the prospect of being able to play with ~250,000USD~. Not knowing what was really going on (All we were told was: Financial market = bad, Healthcare = lame, Technology = spastic), I, surprisingly, got REALLY into it at the beginning, and my indecisiveness was actually an advantage! I would stare at a stock for a LONG time before I bought it, but in the end, I decided to settle for the safe bets: Google, Microsoft, and Apple. (What can I say? I love my technology!) I know, I know, I invested in BOTH MSFT and AAPL, but hey, I don't care as long as they make me money!

And they did. So I started to get more adventurous and bought shares of other companies. Companies that I had never heard of. Thinking to myself "ah, what the heck, it's just a game", I bought a bunch of other shares, although in moderation.

That moderation there ended up saving me. When I lost, I didn't lose as much, but when I won, I didn't win as much either. Still, I was making a profit. By the end of that day, I was at the top of the leader board in my class!

And then, as usual, Regina did stupid things.

I won't go into the details, but I ended up losing a thousand or so bucks on Telecom Brazil due to the 20 minute delay in the Investopedia system. I also made some other bad investments, but luckily I was able to gain at least some of it back by short-selling. We have another 3 weeks of this simulation, so who knows? Maybe I'll do better next week. :P

Anyways, I guess what I've learned from these few days is this:

• Do a lot a research before deciding to invest in a stock. Analyze their graphs and make SMART predictions.
• Don't be afraid to take some risks; you lose some, you win some. That's life. What matters is that you win more than you lose.
• I suck at predicting stocks, but not as much as I thought I did.
• GOOGLE = GOOD.
• I don't want to ever invest in stocks in my life. Ever. The last few days almost gave me a heart attack, and I'd rather invest my money in something that I KNOW is going to give me a return, such as savings bonds and GICs.