For her internship at the end of her university degree, Sophie had the opportunity to spend six months in the US. She had a great time, and was able to experience Halloween the way it’s supposed to be, just like she’d seen in the movies. It’s traditional in America for the streets to transform into rows of haunted houses, each more elaborately decorated than the next, and for residents to dress up as all kinds of different characters. This year, to mark the occasion of Shauna’s arrival in Luxembourg, Sophie is planning to invite her to a US-style Halloween.
Game on! Become a stock market pro!
Sophie is intrigued by Marc’s new hobby and would really like to understand why he is spending so much time on his smartphone scrolling through the news about publicly traded companies. There’s no point asking him to explain what’s so fascinating – he’s much too engrossed in his reading to reply. So Sophie has an idea that will make Marc sit up and take notice!
As she does every week, Sophie was checking her spending on her mobile app when a message from her bank suddenly caught her eye. The subject line said "Take part in Stock Market Learning" and it invited her to take part in the Stock Market Learning competition where she will have a pretend virtual budget that she can invest in shares, bonds, etc. Of course she knows nothing about all these terms at the moment, but has every intention of filling the gaps in her knowledge.
Sophie has no need for Marc and his explanations to learn a few basic concepts because she now has access to a dedicated Internet page where she can find a series of short informational videos that explain the stock market, how it works and the different types of securities available (shares, bonds, etc.), as well as providing helpful tips.
Sophie, who is a bit of a geek at heart, starts watching each video very attentively and learns about the key principles of investing. Although she found it a bit complicated to start with, she told herself that, since she would be experimenting with her virtual money, she wouldn’t be taking any risks if she put the theory she had just absorbed into practice. That way she would have a better feel for what it means to hold securities.
Win a prize for investing well
With the code she received from her bank in S-Net, Sophie created an account so she could start playing and invest the virtual EUR 50.000 she had been given.
She now has until 31 January 2024 to put her knowledge to the test and see what happens to her investments. If Sophie turns out to have a knack for finance, she could win one of the prizes.
Sophie can’t wait to find out if she made the right investments. Who knows, maybe after this experience she will decide to invest some of her savings in the stock markets for real.
Stock Market Learning is an opportunity to manage money virtually on the stock markets. When Sophie comes to invest her money in the markets in real life, she will apply the best practices she learnt from watching the videos and reading the bank's tips.
These are her key takeaways:
1. Investing involves risk, which is why you should never invest all your savings, but make sure that you keep some resources available for your short-term plans (within five years).
2. Investing wisely means giving your money time to gain value. Investments should therefore be made for the long term, otherwise you are in speculative territory and that’s very risky for your savings.
3. To limit your losses, diversify your portfolio as much as possible so that it can slowly but surely increase in value over time.