Generously underwritten for the SIFMA Foundation by Judge InvestWrite Essays in Three Easy Steps Step One The student essays you will judge are based on the InvestWrite assignment below. Please familiarize yourself with the following. InvestWrite Assignment for Grades 9 12 Background: There are lots of nonprofit organizations that help make the world a better place. Examples include the Red Cross, YMCA, Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, and the World Wildlife Fund. They raise money to meet the needs of others, especially when emergencies arise. Writing Assignment: Imagine you volunteer at a nonprofit organization to manage their money, help it grow and protect it from risk. Which organization would you choose and why? What investment strategy that includes stocks, bonds and mutual funds would you use to help this nonprofit continue to thrive five years from now? How would your investment strategy be different to ensure success 20 years from now? Be sure to explain your recommendations based on what you have learned about saving and investing and what you have researched about the organization. Step Two You will score the essays on a 300-point system based on the student s rationale, their understanding of the subject matter, and their writing style. Each area is weighed equally in the scoring process. Below are suggested guidelines for the essay grading criteria: 1
Rationale (100 points) The essay should be well organized and written in a manner that indicates there was a logical thought process involved in addressing the assignment. In the essay, the student should present a thoughtful progression of ideas and recommendations. The essay should draw clear connections between the students thinking and recommendations or conclusions. Is there a clear progression of logical thought? Is the essay well organized? Does the essay clearly address all elements of the question as it was presented to the student? o You are a volunteer for a nonprofit organization and you manage their money o How do you help it grow and protect it from risk? o Which organization would you choose and why? o What investment strategy that includes stocks, bonds and mutual funds would you use to help this nonprofit continue to thrive five years from now? o How would your investment strategy be different to ensure success 20 years from now? o Be sure to explain your recommendations and what you researched. Has the student successfully distinguished between important details and unnecessary details? Understanding of the Subject Matter (100 points) Read the essay with the following questions in mind. Does the student address the elements of the question using appropriate terminology? Does the student exhibit knowledge regarding researching and planning an investment strategy? This aspect of scoring targets the students understanding of the basic concepts taught in the Stock Market Game. Does the student use the appropriate language or terminology when explaining his or her position? Has the student made sensible statements in writing the essay? Does the student demonstrate a correct understanding of the concepts and strategies they address in their response? Has the student demonstrated a sound understanding of what it means to make a good investment for the long term? Five years. 20 years. Judges might give a student extra points for selecting or referencing more than one of the choices of stocks, bonds, and mutual funds. Writing Style (100 points) This scoring element allows the student's creativity to be recognized. Judges assess if the essay is interesting and easy to read and if they were encouraged to continue reading to the conclusion of the essay. Students have an opportunity to exhibit the ability to communicate thoughts in an engaging and inviting manner. Writing style includes assessment of grammar, spelling, and punctuation. This scoring element also offers students the chance to think beyond examples provided in the essay prompt and make their essay unique by expressing their individual interests and creativity. Is the essay interesting to read? Did the student add creativity to the essay by creating narrative about the nonprofit organization they selected and why it s important to the student? (Please note: It isn t required that the organization exists, the student was free to imagine a cause or nonprofit.) Does the response encourage you to continue reading to the conclusion of the essay? Does the student use an engaging approach to address the elements of the essay? Does the student use complete sentences, proper punctuation, and good grammar? Does the essay demonstrate the student s careful crafting and revision? 2
Step Three Decide if you would like to: Review and score the entries on the judging website -OR- Print the entries and return to the judging website to assign scores to each essay Consider entering comments in the field labeled Comments and Feedback for Teacher/Student. This is a great opportunity to provide important feedback to the student and teacher regarding your insights and judging rationale. Many teachers request feedback. As a judge your scores and comments will remain anonymous. A brief sentence is adequate. A FEW ITEMS TO NOTE: Please remember, submitting your final essay scores within the designated time is critical to ensuring the process moves forward and we can inform winning teachers and students as soon as possible. Your Username and Password will permit you to return to your assigned essays as often as you need. Each time you exit, your scores will be saved. Be sure to return and submit all scores when you have completed the process. Please review your essays and assign scores in the three areas, then return as soon as possible to submit all your scores through the InvestWrite judging website: www.investwrite.org/judges NOTE: Once you have entered all individual scores it is necessary to click on the Submit Final Scores button to complete submission. We are available to help with questions and support via email at: help@investwrite.org SOME ITEMS THAT MIGHT BE HELPFUL AS YOU JUDGE YOUR ESSAYS: When grading essays, you might think back to the last time you took a class or taught a course that involved an A through F grading system. One method of judging would be to grade the essay in each of the three areas described above based on the 100-point scale as you read each one (i.e., A=90 and above, B=80 and above, etc.). Another approach involves reading the essays all the way through and ranking them. As you scan them again based on your rankings, you can apply a percentage of the 100 points available for each criterion. Before we recognize a student winner we go through an extensive process to ensure the essay is the work of the student, including use of anti-plagiarism software. However, sometimes an essay might cause you to question whether a student wrote it. Please send us a message containing the essay number if you should have this concern. 3
All essays are judged a minimum of four times, by separate judges. The score you place on an essay will become a part of a composite score within the rest of the judging process. PREVIOUS INVESTWRITE WINNING ESSAYS Many of our judges like to review successful essays that received recognition in the past. Below you will find a first-place winning essay at both the national and state levels. The national essay ranked first place among all essays that were submitted in that grade division for the semester competition. The state essay was the highest scoring essay in this grade division for a state, but not nationally ranked. National First Place Essay, Fall 2015 Winning Student: Zachary A. Winning Teacher: Julie Frey Grade: 11th Place: Manheim Township High School, Lancaster, PA PREVIOUS WINNING ESSAYS FOR OUR JUDGES TO READ Grades 9 12 To Think About: Evelyn Stevens, a former Wall Street professional, has won several US and European cycling races and is an Olympic contender. She says Wall Street is like pro-cycling, "It s not a world you gradually go into you re operating on a high level quickly." Cyclists, like capital markets analysts, must evaluate conditions affecting performance, set goals, pace themselves, develop strategies and maneuvers to absorb change, and rebalance as necessary to stay the course and win. Writing Assignment: Research the job responsibilities of a capital markets analyst. Envision you are presenting to an analyst in this writing assignment. Discuss what you consider to be the most important characteristics of a long-term investment strategy. Select two investments. These can be your Stock Market Game portfolio holdings or other stocks, bonds or mutual funds. Describe why these investments are part of your long-term strategy. Explain the analysis you used and your rationale for making your investment decisions. Like an analyst does, include your assessment of how these investments might be affected over the coming year by the national/global economic environment or by industry or corporate events. The Action-Packed Lifestyle of a Cyclist and a Capital Markets Analyst The job of a capital markets analyst is a hard one. Trying to make a deal between an investor and a company is very stressful most of the time. It requires long hours, hard work, and lack of sleep. Just as a cyclist, one must work their way up the ranks, and hard work is an immense part of what allows people in both of these professions to achieve success. A cyclist must train hard to have success, just as a capital markets analyst must work hard in order have success to make deals go through. Capital markets analysts make decisions that affect the financial future of their clients, and must work hard in order to achieve success for them. Diversifying a portfolio is an effective long-term investing strategy. This could include adding domestic stocks, international stocks, and bonds to a portfolio. Buying a stock is basically buying a share of a company at a low price, and expecting its value to rise over time. Even though they are usually more volatile than other options, they tend to pay out a greater return. It is wise to purchase both international and domestic stocks, because it allows you as an investor to rely on something outside the U.S. economy, in case the economy was to plummet. With a bond, an investor lends a company, the government, or organization money, and expects to receive interest repaid to them. They are generally safe investments, although some are riskier than others. A great ratio of stocks to bonds in an investment portfolio is 60 percent domestic stocks, 25 percent international stocks, and 15 percent in bonds. This is an aggressive approach, but can yield great dividends for an investor willing to stick with it through thick and thin. The average return historically on this investment strategy is a whopping 9.62 percent, but these investors saw their return after being patient and waiting on the stock s value to increase. This patient waiting is another great long-term investing strategy. One investment that could yield big dividends in the future is purchasing stock in the renewable energy company Iberdrola S.A. The company based in Spain has the largest renewable asset base of any company in the world according to Energy Digital. Renewable energy is imperative, as it reduces carbon and other heat-trapping emissions, which in turn reduces global warming (the gradual increase of the Earth s temperature due to these heat-trapping emissions). It has many poor effects on the Earth s climate, ecosystems, and human health. In a study conducted by the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory, it was found that if 80 percent of the energy produced in the U.S. was renewable, the heat-trapping emissions could be reduced by about 81 percent. This would help to solve this issue of Global Warming, making renewable clean 4
energy appealing. A study reported on by the BBC found that coal, oil, and natural gas will be gone by somewhere around the year 2050, based on consumption levels of these fossil fuels in 2012. This leaves the world with an energy crisis, but also a solution: renewable energy. Because Iberdrola is the company with the most renewable energy assets available worldwide, it looks like a great option to solve this energy crisis. It is also diverse globally, which would allow its influence to spread to many different countries in the world (it is currently located in Spain, Portugal, Latin America, the U.S. and the U.K.). The company s stock has been at a steady upward trend since the middle of 2012, and is currently trading at around 6.60 Euros (approximately $7.18 US) per share. Although the EPS has been negative over last 10 years, investing in this stock is not to see short-term returns. Renewable energy is not preferred right now, but will probably become the standard 30 or 40 years down the road. Iberdrola has a great amount of risk; however, it could pay great gains to an investor who is willing to hold it for a very long time. Another company that could pay out great gains to an investor in the long run is Tesla. As oil continues to become scarcer and pollute the air, there must be a transition in the form of transportation, as cars will probably not run on gas in the near future. One solution is the electric car. Tesla had the 3rd most electric car models sold worldwide in 2014 with its Model S, and the most estimated sales from January through April of 2015 with that same car. Tesla is renowned for its highly innovative and technologically advanced electric cars and could see a huge increase in sales as gaspowered cars start to taper off. Even with gas prices being low in 2014, the amount of electric cars bought rose 23 percent, as a record high 119,710 cars were sold. This shows an increasing market for Tesla and its cars. Tesla is special, as its cars go against the stereotype that electric cars do not have power and are visually unappealing. The new Model S has a very sporty design and is fast and powerful. This could help car buyers making the switch from gas to electric have a little bit easier time ridding themselves of their gas powered cars. Its current PEG ratio is a reasonable 1.5 so investing now could be a smart decision. With investors looking to buy stocks such as Tesla or Iberdrola, capital markets analysts have their work cut out for them. They are trying to make a deal between a company and an individual both trying to make money. The analyst must to do heavy research on the company to see that both sides receive a good deal on the investment. They must remember that the potential financial future of the client rests on their shoulders, so they should make good, educated decisions based on this. State First Place Essay, Spring 2017 Winning Student: Lichelle, B. Winning Teacher: Linda Johnson Grade: 12th Place: Provine High School, Jackson, MS Background: Many investors are interested in investing to make the world a better place. This is called Values Based Investing, which includes SRI (socially responsible investing) and ESG (environmental, social, governance) investing. An investor who wants to help cure cancer, heart disease, and other medical conditions might invest in bio-medical or pharmaceutical research companies. An investor who wants to improve the environment might invest in technology companies that provide clean energy solutions. An investor who wants to help pay for infrastructure improvements such as bridges, roads and airports might select government bonds. Essay Question: What do you see as a major challenge in our world that companies or government can help solve with investment capital from stocks, bonds and/or mutual funds? In your essay: Identify several companies or government bond programs working toward solutions for that challenge. Explain if you selected to invest in any of those companies or government bonds in your team s Stock Market Game portfolio. Regarding the challenge and potential solutions you have identified, use fundamental or technical analysis to select the two best long-term investments that you would include in a future, real-life, diversified, portfolio. These two investments can be in your Stock Market Game portfolio or not. Select stocks, or bonds or mutual funds, or a combination, including government bonds and bond funds. Describe how your research tools led you to your decisions. Conclude your essay by encouraging your reader to invest with their own values in mind. Good morning investors and thank you for the opportunity to be here to share my business plans with you. My cause is the Save the Bees Foundation. The Save the Bees Foundation is centered around saving the bees and planting plants that are helpful in sustaining bee populations. The Save the Bees Foundation is important and critical for the success of humanity because bees pollinate the fruits and vegetables we eat. Without bees: prices for food will drastically rise, world hunger will increase, the environment will become unlivable, and we might lose another animal. I do not want to invest any money into government bond programs. Our bee population is not expected to last 10 years so once we get a return on our investment, it will be too late. Instead, I believe that we should start investing in companies working towards environmental protection. There are no companies that work directly with the Save the Bee Foundation nor are targeted to them. 5
I have hand-picked five companies that might be able to help raise the bee population or decrease the hardships of the sad outcome: NextEra Energy Inc. (NEE), Apple Inc. (AAPL), First Solar Inc.(FSLR), JinkoSolar Holding Company (JKS), and Tesla Inc. (TSLA). In my Stock Market Portfolio, I have not yet invested in any of these companies because my partners do not believe that every company has a high enough return. Regarding the challenge and potential solutions I have identified; the two best long term investments would be NextEra Energy Inc. (NEE) and Tesla Inc. (TSLA). Due to the continuous burning of fossil fuels and the pollution of the planet, people are constantly looking for alternatives to the type of natural gases we use. I believe that in the following years, these companies will continue to increase in not only growth but profit. The planet is at a constant decline and these are the only positive alternatives besides stopping all burning of fossil fuels. The two companies I have chosen for my mission to save the bees are NextEra Energy Inc. (NEE) and Tesla Inc. (TSLA). Next Energy Inc. is a low risk company but it shows a constant, but small, increase each year. Tesla Inc., my favorite company, has constantly been showing a major increase and I do not foresee it dropping anytime soon. These companies are perfect for investing in if the Save the Bees Foundation is in mind. In researching, I followed the NASDAQ for two weeks looking at Tesla Inc. to see their growth. I also used resources like Zacks and Yahoo. They led me to these investments by their Top 100 Companies and daily articles. I chose the Save the Bees Foundation because I care about animals and the growth of our beautiful earth. I strongly encourage everyone to invest with their own values in mind. When it is your cause or program the numbers become a lot more important because it is close to your heart. Making the world a better place is beautiful. 6