COMMACK SCHOOLS

Commack High School’s new financial literacy lab already is paying dividends.

After six weeks of participating in the Bloomberg Global Trading Challenge, CHS students have scored big in the investment contest.

In fact, the team of juniors Chris B., Jacob A. and Alex O. as well as teacher Robert Plechner finished 84^th of 2,174 teams globally. And the competition included not just high school students, but college students as well.

Teams are challenged to maximize their return in stock investments during the six-week event after being given a fictitious $1 million at the start of the contest.

Commack’s top team exceeded the rate of return of a Bloomberg global index by $197,858.

“To be 84th out of 2,200 from all of the high school and colleges that have Bloomberg terminals to me is very impressive,” CHS financial literacy teacher Peter Myers said. “When you include the college teams, you’re also including people getting MBAs.”

In all, roughly 75 CHS students participated in the event, with teams ranging from three to four members and representing all grade levels.

One all-female team ranked among the top five at CHS.

There has been such a positive reception, Myers plans to hold an in-house challenge in the spring for students and staff.

“Whether they placed high or not, everyone has walked away with hands-on experience — the ability to understand how the market works, how to grow their money and analyze stocks,” Myers said. “It takes a lot of work to analyze what are good investments.”