More than 1,000 students from 33 area high schools competed in the JA Stock Market Challenge on Feb. 10 and 11 at the Charles Schwab Campus Event Center in Lone Tree.

The JA Stock Market Challenge, presented by Charles Schwab, is a live stock market simulation game, featuring teams of high school students who compete to see who can grow their initial $500,000 investment into the largest net worth “mock” stock portfolio. Students apply what they have learned in the JA Take Stock in Your Future classroom lessons about individual equities, the impact of the economy, geopolitical events, and market sentiment, all against the backdrop of competing with their peers. The challenge offers a taste of what it’s like to build a portfolio, manage risk, and experience its performance in a compressed period of time.

“This is a fantastic exercise to pique students’ interest in the potential power of investing,” said Brian McDonald, senior vice president of client services & support at Charles Schwab. “Although it doesn’t reflect our core approach to long-term investing and our philosophy of building and maintaining an investing strategy over many years, the competition is thought-provoking and engaging for the students, as well as for our employees who help bring it to life.”

Teams from the following 33 Colorado schools participated in this first-ever spring semester JA Stock Market Challenge.