Now you're going to imagine that you invested $1,000 in a company one year ago, and you want to see how well your investment would be doing today.
To begin, choose a company that you're familiar with and that seems as if it might be a good investment — that is, a company that you think will have rising stock prices. Think about companies that you use or know are popular. Remember, not all companies are public companies. You'll need to check the New York Stock Exchange to find out if you can actually buy shares in this company.
Once you've settled on a company, find its stock price from one year ago and for today.
Write a journal entry about your imagined investment. Answer the following questions as you write.
1. What stock did you buy?
2. Why did you think buying this stock would be a good idea?
3. How much would you have made or lost on an investment of $1,000?
Hint: First find out how many shares you could've bought one year ago by dividing $1,000 by the price of the stock one year ago today. You may have to estimate the stock price from the graph. Round the number of shares to the nearest whole number. Then, find out the current value of your shares by multiplying the number of shares you bought by the price of the stock today. Compare that to your initial investment of $1,000.
3. Could you have made more money by selling sooner?