Kids Learn about Money -Tuesdays 4.30-5.30pm

Session 7, May 14, 2019

Stocks

We completed our learning about stocks today.  Here is what we did: 

Reviewed Dividend

Learnt about Earnings.  Discussed how Earnings is basically what a company "makes" minus the costs, taxes and dividends.  

Earnings per Share.  Divide Earnings by the number of shares

Price/Earnings Ratio. Divide Current Price by Earnings.  We learnt about high P/E ratios and low P/E ratios and how the markets tend to like companies with a P/E ratio between 15-25.  

Beta which tells how the stock price moves versus the volatility of the market.  Do they go up and down together (Beta=1), does the stock price go up and down more than the market (Beta > 1) , does the stock price go up and down less than the market (Beta < 1)  

Missions!

There is no homework today.  Enjoy the long weekend with your family. 

Parent Update

Our Bonus winners for last week are as follows: 

$75 Bonus Winners: 

Raymond (invested in Alpha Delta Canadian Focus Mutual Fund - which emphasises education)

Kyle (invested in Fidelity Investment - Dividend Plus Fund.  He actually even went into the web site and tried to find his way around it which is great!)

Bay (invested in a 5 star Mutual Fund with a low MER (fees) of 1.3%) 

All parents are invited to our Parents vs Kids Investment Challenge on May 21 at 5.00pm.  

 All kids will be bringing home on May 21 a gift card of $70 towards any of our 2018 Summer Camps.  

 Session 6, May 7, 2019

Mutual Funds 

We learnt about Mutual Funds and the kids learnt what a fund was, how to invest in a fund, what NAV is and also got some knowledge of fund charges.   We will follow up a bit more on it over the next week.  

Stocks

We learnt about Dividends and how this works for different companies.  Next week we will focus on Earnings and P/E Ratios so they are able to fully understand stocks.  

Missions! (Link to Portfolios is here)

Looking forward to seeing others (especially Chloe, George, Sandra and Ishaan) jump into the Challenge this week. 

• If you have done previous steps calculate the price of the investment today and add that info to Step 9 and continue from there. 
• If you haven't done it, then jump straight to Step 10 with $10,000 to invest.
• If you have any questions, email me at hello@explorerhop.com  or on Instagram @explorerhop

1) Look up the price of the precious metals you bought (Google "Price of Gold today" if you invested in Gold and put in the price there) 

2) There is no broker fees to sell coins so you do not deduct any broker fees.

3) Calculate how much you have to invest in Mutual Funds. Don't forget to calculate how much cash you have as well. 

4) Use this document to invest in Mutual Funds https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1l-iXzX0j8iPorxvFd7qEjfqxPk0c3-_72xq6GIJgZaI/edit?usp=sharing

5) Add the following to your portfolio

 

Parent Update

Our Bonus winners for last week are as follows: 

$50 Bonus Winners:  Kyle, Kayleigh, Garrett, Bay

$75 Bonus Winners:  Rohan (invested in Platinum),  Raymond (Invested in Rhodium) 

All parents are invited to our Parents vs Kids Investment Challenge on May 21 at 5.00pm.  If you are able to come, please let me know by email.  hello@explorerhop.com 

 

Session 5, April 30, 2019

Investing in Gold

Today we learnt about investing in Gold and other Precious metals as a viable investment in the short term.  

They learnt about the 5 different "precious" metals and the pros and cons of each one.  

We also did an exercise where they had to pick the year their grandparent was born (or any year between 1920 - 1950) and compare how an investment of $10,000 would have fared if it was invested in Gold or the Stock Market over the years.  Overwhelmingly, they realized that over a very long period, Gold will never give better returns than the Stock Market. 

Learnt about the Dow Jones but we will review this again next week. 

Mission! 

For those who didn't do the mission last week, you can go straight to this week.  Here is the link to the portfolios

1) Sell All the stock you have. Brokerage costs $10 per transaction. This time you will pay brokerage when you sell and when you buy.  So, instead of subtracting only $10 you will subtract $20.  ($10 for the transaction of selling the stocks, and $10 again for the transaction for buying the stocks). 

2) Invest your money in buying coins of any of the precious metals  

• Pick which precious metal you want to invest in: Gold, Silver, Platinum, Rhodium, Palladium
• Look up the price in Ounces (oz) for that metal
• Calculate how much of that metal you can buy.  It has to be a whole number. 
• If you have any cash remaining, add it to cash. 

 

Parent Info: 

The following students got a $50  bonus in the Investment Challenge: 

Kyle,  Rohan, Sam

 

The following students invested in Mexican companies and got a $75  bonus in the Investment Challenge: 

 Bay,  Raymond

 

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Session 4, April 23, 2019

Free Trade Agreements

I am very impressed with the knowledge the students had on Free Trade Agreements and NAFTA.  

We learnt what is a tariff and how does it impact your budget.  We also learnt about the benefits and negative impacts of free trade.  

Understanding how Tariffs impact your income

We took the example of tariffs placed by USA on Canadian Aluminium and Steel and spoke about how they impact house prices in Florida.  We also spoke about Ontario's automobile industry and how tariffs would impact jobs in Ontario.  It was very lively discussion and I am happy to see the 5th graders getting into it. 

Stock information: 

We learnt about Daily and Annual (52 week) highs and lows, we looked at trading volumes and the daily opening prices of each stock. 

Missions!!

If you didn't do last week's mission. You can jump straight into Step 5. 

1) Update your portfolios with the following:  

a) Sell all the stock you are holding.  This time, you are going to deduct Broker Commission of $10 

b) Purchase a stock that is either American or Mexican.  This is to get students familiar with companies that are in Mexico and very well run, and are often overlooked in financial investments.  Those who pick a Mexican company will get $25 additional Bonus.  

c) Add the 52 Week High and Low, and the Market Cap by looking up the Ticker on Yahoo Finance.  

d) Add Market Cap for this stock. You will get this information also on Yahoo Finance.  

e) You only need to do this 1 time before next Monday.  

Parent Info:

The following students got a $50  bonus in the Investment Challenge: 

Kyle, Bay, Rohan, Ishaan, Chloe, Kayleigh, Raymond, 

 

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Session 3, April 16, 2019

Carbon Tax

We had a very active class today and the participation from everyone was excellent.  

We learnt about Carbon Tax, Trading Tax credits and alternatives used around the world.  

This will come up again later in the classes as our understanding increases.  

Calculating Income 

Everyone picked a random number between 27-40 and wrote down what they want to be.  We used this info to look up how much they would be earning, their tax rate and calculated how much they could spend on rent, food, fun etc.  It led to several animated conversations with a lot of disbelief on the taxes we pay. lol!

Stock Market 

We learnt today about Market Cap and how it's basically Price * number of shares.  We will also be touching on this in every session.  

Missions!!

Link for your portfolios.  https://drive.google.com/drive/u/1/folders/1ZP_bPdL9xCpmzZQxL90E2AReCBDgcffD

1) For those who are playing the stock market challenge, you are going to do the following. 

a) Sell all the stocks you have in your portfolio

b) Research and find a Green Energy Company.  

c) Find what is the Market Cap of that company

d) Add the price and Market Cap of that company for at least 2 times this week.  

e) If you see a number on the tab at the bottom, roll your mouse over it and you will see comments I may have put there.  Please click the tab and press "resolve" on the comment that pops up. 

Parent Info: 

The following students have got a bonus in the Investment Challenge. 

Kyle - completed all 5 days and did an awesome job explaining why Amazon is going up and down daily.  He gets $100 bonus

Rohan & Kayleigh & Chloe  & Bay, completed all 5 days. Rohan picked Paypal,  Kayleigh picked Disney, and Chloe picked Lululemon, Bay picked Tencent - all awesome picks!  They  gets $75 bonus

Sam, Raymond,  Ishaan, Garrett get $50 for starting the challenge.  

 

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Session 2: April 9, 2019 

Fundamentals of Banking: 

We learnt today what are the different types of Banks and who does what in a bank. We will circle back to this as the weeks go by.    

Investing:

We covered the following things: 

1. All investing falls into 3 categories:  Investment by Buying things, Investment by Lending money, and Cash. 
2. A stock is basically a piece of the company that you own. 
3. How do you figure out what to invest in: Read the news, Notice what people are doing and understand your risk.
4. What is a Ticker Symbol
5. What are the roles of stock markets and brokers
6.  40% of all stock wealth in the world is traded through New York. 

Missions!!

 1) Investment Portfolios:  The students will invest in ONE stock and follow it EVERYDAY.   Here are the tasks of what they will do. 

1. Locate your portfolio in this folder.  DO NOT click on anyone else's file. https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1ZP_bPdL9xCpmzZQxL90E2AReCBDgcffD?usp=sharing 
2. Download Yahoo Finance on your device or go to Yahoo Finance Website (click and it will take you there)
3. In the search field put in the name of your company.  Example "Facebook" and click on it. 
4. In your portfolio, add the following: 
1. Company Name,
2. Ticker,
3. Stock Market, 
4. why you think it's a good investment.  
5. Calculate the number of shares you can buy.  You do this by dividing the principal with the price of the share. Remember it has to be a whole number. 
6. Add the number of shares you bought. 
7. Add the price of your shares today. 
8. Repeat every week day (M-F) until next Monday. 
9.  Add whatever remaining cash is left in the cash column. They sheets are set up to do it automatically.  For those who got a Bonus. You will see that the Bonus is already added to your principal column.
10. When the price of your stock goes down, Google the company name and see why.  If it goes up, also try to figure out why.  Come prepared next week to talk about your stocks.  

2) Compare Banks:  Complete this Mission to compare interest rates. You can either do research online or walk into branches and talk to managers (always a wonderful way to get the best deal). 

 Parent Updates: 

1) Check out your submissions for last week's missions here: https://explorerhop.com/blogs/gallery/how-to-save-more. Feel free to share it with your buddies. 

2) Bonus awarded: Kudos to the following students who got a bonus for getting their work done last week.  The money will be added to your portfolio. 

Bay: +$100 - first one to complete the savings mission 

Martin: +$100 - first one to submit a response on what he is deferring spending on (it was fortnite skins!) 

The following get a bonus of $50 for completing their mission Save More

Ryan, Chloe, Easton, Sam, Ishaan, Raymond, Matthew 

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Session 1: April 2, 2019:  Basics about Saving

We had a fun first class.  We start each class with the fundamentals of money which is savings.  We learnt the following things today: 

1) How to save

2) Ask yourself 3 questions before you buy anything: 

3) Cut waste as this adds up.  Specifically we spoke about food waste and how the average person in Canada wastes $1000/year per person on food waste. 

4) Start saving early and put your money in a bank instead of holding it in various piggy banks and other places. 

5) Have a goal.  

Money Missions to be completed before Monday (April 8) evening 

1) Deferred Spending Activity: 

Working on the concept that "just because you have money, you don't have to spend it", students are asked NOT to spend money this week and instead if they want to buy something ask themselves 3 questions: Do I need it? Will I use it? Will I enjoy it? .  Post the picture of what they were thinking of buying on Instagram or Facebook under the #explorerhop and tell me what the responses were.  If your family does not have Instagram or Facebook they can simply email me a picture with their responses to the 3 questions. The email is: hello@explorerhop.com   

This activity is to help them to pause before spending money or investing in shares without understanding the information first. 

2) Complete this Short exercise on Savings:  https://explorerhop.com/pages/mission-save-more

3) Bank Account & Debit Card: 

All students are highly recommended to open a bank account and get a debit card.  We will be talking about money safety and how to use a bank account next week.  They do not need to bring the debit card to school but will need it for the homework next week.  

For students who do not have a bank account and a student debit card, a lot of our students go to Meridian Credit Union as they are very child friendly and the process seems to be stress free.  We normally recommend the St. Clair & Yonge Branch.  They are used to kids in our program coming there and provide appointments so you are in and out in a few minutes.  (Note: We do not benefit from this in any way.  We are simply sharing this information based on feedback received from previous students).  

Contact at Meridian Credit Union: 

Branch Manager: Kerelle Lovelace, kerelle.Lovelace@meridiancu.ca Tel: 416-925-3887, ext 3260

or contact Jade: Jade.Spilchen-Downie@meridiancu.ca  Tel:416-925-3887, ext 3254

Address: St. Clair Branch, 26 St. Clair Avenue East, Toronto, Ontario, M4T 1L7

4) Stock Market Challenge starts next week. 

Please ask your child to come with 2 companies they would like to start investing in.  They should be prepared to answer these questions about the company:

• What does the company do?
• What do I think makes it a good investment?
• What news is being reported about the company?

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Hello from Explorer Hop! 

Thank you for registering your child for our Kids Learn about Money program (April 1 - May 27 (8 weeks))

We are looking forward to meeting your child and teaching them about money management and investment.  Be prepared to have some wonderful conversations around money at the dining table! 

Parents are requested to do 2 things: 

1) Bookmark this page so that you know what we are doing and get reminders as needed. 

2) Complete our online form so that we can start getting to know your child and preparing for them. 

Enjoy your Spring Break!