{"id":38410,"date":"2025-06-05T12:43:33","date_gmt":"2025-06-05T16:43:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/?p=38410"},"modified":"2025-06-23T10:42:59","modified_gmt":"2025-06-23T14:42:59","slug":"mayx-course-features-a-stock-market-boot-camp-and-1m-of-virtual-money","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/mayx-course-features-a-stock-market-boot-camp-and-1m-of-virtual-money\/","title":{"rendered":"MayX course features a stock market boot camp and $1M of virtual money"},"content":{"rendered":"

Big gains, tough losses and the roller coaster of emotions that come with investing and trading in the stock market are at the heart of a new MayX<\/a> course that takes a 15-day deep dive into the basics of stocks, bonds, options and understanding Wall Street.<\/p>\n

Francis Kim, an associate professor of finance, wanted to create a space where any Furman student could explore how markets respond to real-world events. It became especially pertinent to him as tariffs and an unusually volatile stock market dominated the financial news in the past few months.<\/p>\n

\"One

Students paper trade stocks and options after engaging in rigorous analysis of their chosen companies in the “Stock Option Trading and Risk Management” MayX.<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cI always wanted a hands-on class where I could talk freely about markets, economy, policy and really everything that might affect the market,\u201d Kim said. A MayX course gave him the perfect opportunity to launch \u201cStock Option Trading and Risk Management.\u201d He limited the class to 15 students and grouped them in five teams of three. Each team received $1 million in simulated money, and, to make it a little more real, he purchased five virtual trading accounts on StockTrak.com.<\/a><\/p>\n

The challenge? Trade stocks, bonds, options, cryptocurrencies and currencies in real time. The goal? Learn how the market works and understand just how hard it is to make investment decisions.<\/p>\n

There are no exams, just the success or failure of a teams\u2019 portfolio performance and class engagement to learn from mistakes and correct them using the ebbs and flows of the real market. Kim said while the money might be simulated, the rush of adrenaline his 15 students feel is real.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe fluctuations are quite intense,\u201d said Allen Zhang \u201927. \u201cThe first thing I do in the morning is check the stock performances. I have experienced joy and excitement when things go well, and also plenty of stress when the market suffers. It\u2019s not real money, but my group is dedicated to making the most profit in the class, which we did in the end.\u201d<\/p>\n

Though most of the teams experienced that same range of emotion, including being down around $10,000 at certain points, Kim said it\u2019s important to learn about those fluctuations first so that success can come. This class is a great way to encourage, engage and, most importantly, build from experience. Encouraged by the course\u2019s popularity, Kim hopes to expand enrollment next year and may even co-teach with a behavioral scientist. He also has ideas of expanding the lessons to Furman faculty and staff.<\/p>\n

\u201cI really want people to understand the real-world policies and economic events that are affecting stock prices every day,\u201d Kim said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Students in Francis Kim’s \u201cStock Option Trading and Risk Management\u201d MayX course were able to trade and invest in real time using simulated money to learn valuable lessons about the stock market. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":389,"featured_media":38189,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,46,2,54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-38410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business-and-accounting","category-economics","category-featured","category-may-experience"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/389"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38410"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38410\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38442,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38410\/revisions\/38442"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38189"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.furman.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}