BIDDEFORD  —While most students focused on homework and extracurricular activities after school, 18-year old Austin Dutremble, a senior at Biddeford Regional Center of Technology, was busy analyzing the global financial markets.

His hard work resulted in a long-term return, making him a first-place Maine state winner of the SIFMA Foundation’s InvestWrite® competition. The program challenges thousands of students across the country to consider an investing scenario and make recommendations that incorporate short- and long-term investment goals.

“Austin Dutremble’s rigorous analysis and remarkable essay earned him the SIFMA Foundation’s ‘InvestWrite Genius’ title this semester,” said Melanie Mortimer, President of the SIFMA Foundation. “We commend Austin and his teacher, Ken Crepeau, for this achievement. Helping students better understand our economy, our markets, the role of investors, and how to make good investments will pay dividends for the students, their education, and the economy.”

InvestWrite serves as a culminating activity for 600,000 4th-12th graders nationwide who compete each year in the SIFMA Foundation’s Stock Market Game™, an online simulation of the global capital markets that reinforces STEM learning, 21st Century skills, economics, investing and personal finance.

Since InvestWrite’s inception in 2004, over 200,000 students have submitted essays and Dutremble is among 20,000 students this school year participating in the InvestWrite challenge, which bridges classroom learning in mathematics, social studies, and language arts with the practical research and knowledge required for long-term personal financial planning.

The essay prompt challenged Dutremble to describe the strategy he used to select his Stock Market Game classroom portfolio and also to analyze and suggest stocks based on the “blended” approach favored by investment guru Peter Lynch. The recommendation needed to include a stock, bond or mutual fund that would make a good long-term investment.

The essay required Dutremble to describe the technical or fundamental analysis he used to make his recommendation.

Dutremble focused on Nike, including in his essay, “Blended approach investing uses fundamental and technical analysis to determine the value of a stock. After using this approach, I discovered investing in Nike is a good idea because the fundamental analysis is very strong.”

InvestWrite enables students like Austin Dutremble to develop the personal financial savvy needed to make practical financial decisions with confidence and gain a deeper understanding of economic opportunities, consequences, and benefits.

Students consider real-world events and news, conduct research online, and develop investment recommendations. They work in groups during The Stock Market Game™ program and then write their InvestWrite essays individually to reflect their critical thinking, analysis, and creative talents.

Dutremble was the recipient of the Maine Principal’s Association Award and has received the Certificate of Academic Achievement for the past three years. He is a member of the National Honor Society and the National Technical Honor Society. Dutremble has volunteered for Habitat for Humanity and is a Biddeford High School Freshman Mentor.

His teacher, Ken Crepeau, has been teaching Investing and Personal Finance for 12 years and has previously had both Stock Market Game and InvestWrite winners. Crepeau said,

“We find the Stock Market Game not only educational but fun. InvestWrite provides great value to my program, and is an intrinsically motivating activity for my students,” he said.

Winning InvestWrite essays are chosen through rigorous judging by thousands of teachers and industry professionals who evaluate students’ understanding of long-term investing, diversification, the capital markets, and factors that drive investments as well as their expression of investment ideas in essay form.

An independent, double-blind, nationally randomized evaluation conducted by Learning Point Associates (now AIR) found that The Stock Market Game improves students’ academic achievement and personal financial behavior. Students who participated in the SIFMA Foundation’s Stock Market Game scored significantly higher on mathematics and financial literacy tests than their peers who did not participate.

They also found that teachers who taught The Stock Market Game reported that the program motivated them to better plan for their own financial futures. The Stock Market Game has been named the only program that successfully increased scores on the Jumpstart Coalition’s test of high school students’ financial literacy.

Dutremble and Crepeau were honored at an event held at Biddeford Regional Center of Technology on May 9.

The SIFMA Foundation is dedicated to fostering knowledge and understanding of the financial markets for individuals of all backgrounds, with a focus on youth.  Drawing on the support and expertise of the financial industry, the SIFMA Foundation provides financial education programs and tools that strengthen economic opportunities across communities and increase individuals’ access to the benefits of the global marketplace.

Notable Foundation programs include the Stock Market Game, which has served nearly 16 million students since it began in 1977, the InvestWrite national essay competition, www.investwrite.org, the Capitol Hill Challenge, and Invest It Forward. For more information on the work of the SIFMA Foundation, visit www.sifma.org/foundation.

For more information, visit www.sifma.org.

 

 

PHOTO CAPTION:  Austin Dutremble, a senior at Biddeford Regional Center of Technology and Biddeford High School, was named the state winner of the SIFMA Foundation’s Fall 2016 InvestWrite® essay competition.  Pictured left to right: BRCOT Instructor Ken Crepeau, ME/NH Coordinator for InvestWrite Jim Ford, BHS Senior Austin Dutremble and his Mother Tracy Dutremble.

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