NEWS RELEASE | FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE | May 23, 2023
BISMARCK, ND – The North Dakota Securities Department is pleased to announce Dominic Meier, an 11th grader at Zeeland Public School in Zeeland, North Dakota, is the first-place winner of the SIFMA Foundation’s InvestWrite® essay competition in North Dakota.
Meier, a student in Jacob Cline’s Economics class, competed among thousands of other students around the country to write the best essay about long-term investing and the capital markets in the high school division.
SIFMA Foundation’s InvestWrite® national essay competition bridges classroom learning in math, social studies, and language arts with the practical research and knowledge required for saving, investing and long-term planning. It also serves as a culminating activity for The Stock Market Game™, a curriculum-based financial education program funded for North Dakota students by the Securities Department. The curriculum challenges students to manage a hypothetical $100,000 online portfolio of stocks, bonds, mutual funds and cash over a semester or school year.
“We congratulate Dominic, and are grateful to Mr. Cline for supporting these important programs in his classroom”, said Karen Tyler, North Dakota Securities Commissioner. “Helping North Dakota students better understand our economy, our markets, the role of investors, and how to make good investment decisions will pay dividends for the students, their education, and the North Dakota economy.”
Meier believes in the long-term benefits of investing: “I am very happy I got to participate in the Stock Market Game. I learned a lot and it will affect the rest of my life... knowing how to manage a stock portfolio might be one of the most important things anyone can learn throughout high school.”
The Fall 2022 InvestWrite® competition presented the following challenge to 4th-12th graders: There are valuable research sources to help you make informed choices when developing your Stock Market Game investment portfolio. Discuss what you think are the most important things to research and use those to select a portfolio of stocks/bonds/mutual funds you think will be successful in the long-term. Explain why your selections will make good long-term investments.
Meier’s thoughtful and insightful essay was selected by a panel of thousands of expert judges from across the financial services industry.
About the North Dakota Securities Department
As part of its overall investor protection mission, the North Dakota Securities Department provides North Dakota K-12 students with programs to help build the economic knowledge and financial skills needed to thrive in the dynamic economy. By providing quality training and up-to-date resources, the Securities Department partners with teachers and schools to help students develop decision-making skills needed to be informed consumers, productive employees or innovative entrepreneurs, and educated investors.
About the SIFMA Foundation
The SIFMA Foundation is committed to closing the opportunity gap by fostering greater knowledge of the financial markets for young people of all backgrounds. Drawing on the support and expertise of educators and the financial industry, the Foundation provides financial education to strengthen economic opportunity across communities and increase awareness of the benefits of the global marketplace. Since 1977, the Foundation’s most notable program, The Stock Market Game, has guided more than 22 million students on their path to financial independence by attaining stronger life skills, improving academic achievement, and boosting their social-emotional learning. For more information on the SIFMA Foundation, visit www.sifma.org/foundation.
About InvestWrite®
InvestWrite® is a culminating activity for Stock Market Game students extending their classroom learning with a written challenge to address real-world financial issues and situations. Students must analyze, think critically and problem solve about a long-term saving and investing scenario. More than 260,000 student essays have been evaluated by their teachers and over 40,000 financial professionals have served as volunteer judges. Essays are judged by financial professionals who volunteer their time each year to ensure young people are exposed to the essentials of personal finance early in life. Judges evaluate students’ understanding of long-term investing, diversification, the global capital markets, and factors that drive investments as well as their expression of investment ideas in essay form. Winners locally and nationally rise to the top to earn exciting awards including laptops, classroom pizza parties, trophies, plaques and banners, and certificates. For more information about InvestWrite®, visit www.investwrite.org.