Non-profit organization Junior Achievement of New York, which places volunteers in NYC and Long Island class rooms to “teach students about their role in society and how to successfully navigate their futures,” held its annual Stock Market Challenge last night. The fundraiser, sponsored this year by Merrill Lynch, simulates 60 days of trading, with teams (from banks and other businesses) being issued $500,000 in mock dollars that they use to purchase fake stocks before the “opening bell.” They then buy and sell through a “floor trader,” several of which roam the room taking orders. All proceeds go to funding JANY’s programs. Unfortunately, we weren’t invited. Luckily, one participant took copious notes. Normally we’d make you wait for the results (as you would expect, ranking from first to last place is determined by how much “money” each team has at the end), but they’re too hilarious—and telling—not to put out there up front. (You’ll note that Citi did not place in the Top Ten, which had less to with lacking skills and more to with neither participating nor donating to the event, because it was awake at the office doing work.)
1. Best Buy (1)
2. WaMu
3. Merrill
4. Deloitte
5. Keyspan (1)
6. Goldman (2)
7. KPMG
8. Best Buy (2)
9. Keyspan (2)
10. (I forget, but not a big-dog)
11. Pitney Bowes
…….
19. Goldman (2)
Some additional points of interest:
- Last night’s win by Best Buy’s A-Team (B-Team came in 8th, still beating Goldman by a long shot) represented its third straight 1st place finish in as many years.
- Both Best Buy teams were wearing their trademark blue shirts; the Goldmans wore suits, in addition to their cloaks of failure.
- Man from MetLife yelling at the bartender, “Just give me a fucking Amstel if you don’t have fucking Budweiser! I got 30 seconds before opening bell!”
- Deloitte employees stealing intel from a team that didn’t show up. (Each team was given a package that included “paperwork,” two “Press Release” tags (providing news on the mock stocks through the weeks) and five “Portfolio Summary” tags.))
- One of the volunteer traders telling a Merrill guy to “fuck off” for getting spit in his ear while shouting trades.
- The fact that Merrill’s third place finish represented a tremendous improvement from last year, when it came in 21st place (out of 24 teams).
- Everyone putting down their heads and walking out of the room in (near) tears, while the Best Buy Geek Squad guys showered each other with praises, while high-fiving and chest bumping.
Huh?
floor brokers? What? No algos?
Best Buy, nice double entendre.
Sidenote, the #19 GS team must have been the Global Alpha PMs.
Hope the talented Best Buy team enjoy their pretend money as much as they enjoy pretending they are going to their pretend home in Greenwich or their pretend home in the Hamptons, driving their pretend high-end luxury car.
What’s this list? Is #1 the winner?
@ 1:20
Please, they take their pretend helicoptor out to the hamptons- weeee!
@1:20 – you can’t tell whether the team ranked #1 on a list of results is the winner? With such math and comprehension skills, you’d be a shoo-in to work at Goldman.
Now the liitle financiers will want to do 130/30 homework and port alpha to school.
Wait..it wouldn’t be a real contest unless the little junior deskheads called each other the night before and discussed the “time and signal” before running a stock the way they wanted it to go.
@ girl – continued from the morning bell. how far downtown do you want round II to be?
@ golden girl – did you have an enjoyable 8-9pm last night?
@ big r – anal_yst and i were just discussing- pretty far downtown & as long as its outdoors.
Just pick east-side (Seaport area?) or West side (Pj clarks?), unless you all wanna do it up straight alky style @ Kalarney (sp?) Rose.
http://www.alllooksame.com/register.php
user name: stromblarney
pw: dungeons
the hardest exam ive ever taken.
bess, i’ll be honest, you explained this process pretty shittily. were there actual midgets trading or just fake ones with dehabilitating meth dependencies?
-chad
@chad– can you read? “Unfortunately, we weren’t invited.”
straight up alkifarianism regardless-
westside.
ham ‘o5 – it is difficult, but what’s the point?
@big r: I have to say, I was a little let down. I was hoping for a more creative reveal. That being said, the fact that Chuck lost his v-card to Georgie was gold. And the I-bankers at PJ Clarkes line was a good one.
I was just hoping for more of, you know, an actual murder.
Or at least for Chuck and Blair to totally team up on Georgarah.
@ab – the point is to highlight and reaffirm the fact that all asians do, in fact, look the same
no point – just a distraction from the day…
ah ok. But would you be able to distinguish between a selection of Limeys, Krauts and Frogs? I would imagine they would all look the same as well.
Limeys are the drunks,
Krauts are the master race (standind like they have a pole up the ass) and the frogs look like euro trash and gesture a great deal. The whites and jews both look very similiar (and very different from The Poors).
@ girl & anal_yst – i’ll make the trip just let me know where.
@ golden – ive been asked to not make bess’ posts a gg discussion board and to “take that shit to the community section”. so i’ll just say that b, n, and c’s “non-juding breakfast club” scene was great.