A common request we receive is professors looking for ways to make StockTrak more accessible for students in entry-level classes – students who are first starting to understand the fundamentals of investments and finance, or participating in remote classes with less face time with professors for explanation on how to get their portfolio started.
Well, we have good news! Our latest enhancements to the StockTrak Assignments feature makes it faster and easier than ever for your students to get started, and provide guidance to your class. Here’s what we added:
Educational Articles
In addition to the tutorial videos and trading assignments that are already part of assignments, our latest update also includes reading assignments for beginners.
There are three “classes” of articles – Core Basics, Portfolio Building, and Derivatives. All of these articles are paired with tutorial videos and trading assignments to help students kick-start their portfolio, and answer some of the most common questions beginners have when first starting out.
Core Basics
These articles cover the “basics of the basics” – a core introduction for students getting their first introduction to the stock market and investing. Articles include:
- What is a Stock?
- What is a Ticker Symbol?
- Getting and Understanding Stock Quotes
- Why Investors Choose Stocks
- What is a Mutual Fund?
Portfolio Building
For students who are already aware of some common investing terms, the next step is building a diversified portfolio. Our “Portfolio Building” articles are designed to help students build a diversified portfolio. Articles include:
Derivatives
These articles are for students who are already familiar with the stock market and investing, and are allowed to trade Options, Spots, Futures, or other derivatives as part of their class. These articles give basic cursory information on how these derivatives work, and what role they can play in a portfolio. Articles include:
Start and End Dates
New in Summer 2017, you can set specific start and end dates for your StockTrak assignment. This means you can create a first “Introduction” assignment with tutorial articles and videos for students before trading even begins, then require students to place certain trades and use particular order types, before adding in a later assignment covering derivatives and international investing. You can set the start and end dates to any window you wish – either sequential (one beginning when the other ends) or overlapping (students pick which assignment to work on at a given time).
If you want to create an assignment for your class, click here. If you haven’t already, click here to set up your next class.