Need Winning Investment Advice? Ask this High Schooler
Paul D. Schreiber High School Student Builds Winning Investment Portfolio, Places First in the Nation in SIFMA Foundation’s InvestWrite® Competition
New York, NY, 5/28/2025– As Warren Buffett once said, “Someone is sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.” That idea is at the heart of Emily Bonavitacola’s winning essay, which emphasized the value of building financial stability through informed investing.
Emily, a tenth-grade student at Paul D. Schreiber High School in Port Washington, New York, is planting the seeds for a financially secure future. Her thoughtful, long-term investment plan earned her first in the nation and first in New York state in the SIFMA Foundation’s Fall 2024 InvestWrite® competition, the nation’s premier youth financial writing challenge.
Chosen from thousands of entries, Emily’s essay demonstrated a clear understanding of diversification, long-term investing, and risk—core concepts that drive informed financial decision-making. Emily and teacher Jennifer Herber will be honored by the SIFMA Foundation in a ceremony held on May 28, 2025.
InvestWrite is the capstone to the SIFMA Foundation’s Stock Market Game™, a curriculum-based simulation in which students manage a hypothetical $100,000 portfolio of stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and cash. The program has reached more than 23 million students since 1977 and is widely recognized for improving academic achievement in math, economics and personal finance.
“We’re thrilled to celebrate Emily for this outstanding achievement,” said Melanie Mortimer, President of the SIFMA Foundation. “This is a powerful example of how financial education helps young people take control of their futures. By understanding long-term investing, students like Emily are building not just portfolios, but real financial confidence, know-how and independence.”
Each year, InvestWrite challenges students to apply what they’ve learned in the Stock Market Game to a real-world investing scenario. Thousands of financial professionals across the country volunteer to judge the essays, selecting winners who demonstrate depth of knowledge, critical thinking, and a practical vision for financial independence.
As part of its growing portfolio of programs and in response to increasing demand for families to build their financial savvy and engage in educational summer fun, SIFMA Foundation is launching The Stock Market Game Summer Session. Offered June 30 – August 8, 2025, the SMG Summer Session is a free, national investing competition in which family members can challenge each other as individuals or teams. Youth participants are eligible to compete for prizes, receive certificates of completion, and build essential financial skills over the summer. Registration is available at smg.stockmarketgame.org/#
Additionally, amidst rapid growth of new online investing tools and social media finfluencers, SIFMA Foundation has stepped up its efforts to provide tools for individuals to understand the fundamentals of risk-managed investing. Offered free of charge at www.stockmarketgame.org, SMG InvestQuest is an online, 30-minute investing simulation that spans five years of real market activity and challenges users to allocate a hypothetical investment portfolio in response to news and industry trend reports. SMG InvestQuest emphasizes asset allocation, portfolio diversification, and long-term investing.
“Our summer investing challenge and interactive online educational games extend these opportunities beyond the classroom and into everyday life,” Mortimer added. “Whether through SMG InvestQuest or our SMG Summer Session, we are creating more pathways for young people and their families to learn, grow, and achieve their financial dreams.”
In the Fall InvestWrite competition, 4th–12th grade students were asked to reflect on their Stock Market Game portfolios and consider the following questions: “Was your portfolio diversified? If so, how? If not, how could you make it more diversified for long-term financial success?” Students were challenged to explain their investment strategy and recommend a future approach to saving or investing that reflects their understanding of a sound, diversified financial plan.
Jennifer Herber, Emily Bonavitacola, Dr. Kathryn Behr, Dr. Chris Shields, and Melanie Mortimer (President of SIFMA Foundation)
Winning Essay
Investing in the stock market is like listening to a symphony; each sector and stock plays its own tune, and together they harmonize to drive the market forth. Some easily notice the sequences, following along without a breeze, while others lose the melody and struggle to stay in sync. During the Stock Market Game, I discovered how challenging it can be to risk your assets, determine when to buy and sell stocks, and how diversification is important for long-term success in the market.
For my portfolio, the three major stocks that I invested in were NIO (NIO), Tesla (TSLA), and Nvidia (NVDA). I also invested in two mutual funds; Vanguard 500 Index Fund Admiral Shares (VFIAX), a fund that tracks the S&P 500, and Fidelity Select Technology Portfolio (FSPTX), which focuses on the technology sector. NIO, a China investment: vehicle (EV) company, seemed like a solid first major investment; the EV market in China has been expanding recently due to the government pushing clean energy. Around early October of this year, the market value skyrocketed, explaining most of the growth in my portfolio. Tesla is also a large company in the EV market. TSLA has a strong history of performance. Due to its high volatility, investors are able to gain large amounts of profit, although they do risk losing their investment quickly. Over the past few years, Nvidia has become a leading player in the technology sector alongside Apple, which led me to invest in it. Nvidia appealed to me because of its massive role in shaping the future of the market due to its leadership in AI and graphics processing units (GPUs). As these industries expand, Nvidia’s growth drives demand, making it a reliable company for long-term investments. FSPTX allowed my portfolio to broaden my investments in the technology sector beyond just singular stocks. VFIAX provided stability by tracking the S&P 500, making it less risky than focusing on one sector. At first glance, my portfolio seemed somewhat diverse because of its mix of different industries and types of investments. However, I realized that it was dependent on technology, leaving other opportunities missed.
At first, my investments were chosen based on the desire to get the most impressive returns, so naturally, I decided to invest in tech stocks. I hoped the fast-growing technology sector would yield the most growth. However, later in the Stock Market Game I realized that different types of investments would help my portfolio the most and allow for the most growth when the market is doing well and keep it stable when it's wobbly. This led me to research companies in different sectors as well as mutual funds.
In the early stages in the Stock Market Game, my performance exceeded my expectations. NIO, one of the first stocks that I invested in, was unpredictable at first due to the small market cap and relative size of the company, but gave the most returns out of any of my investments. However, right after the peak of the returns, the market value plummeted and wiped out all my gains. Tesla and Nvidia also delivered great returns thanks to the positive market trends early in the game. Later in the game, challenges emerged when the tech sector began to falter. Many of my stocks lost value which hurt my overall portfolio performance. While VFIAX and my other investments that were not in the tech sector provided some amount of stability, I did not have enough invested in them to fully offset my losses.
Diversification is akin to all the instruments in an ensemble. When one area fails to meet expectations, the other parts can keep the performance steady and hold the weight of all of them. Like how a conductor ensures each section plays its specific role, investors must carefully orchestrate their portfolio and bring the elements together into a flawless ensemble. Sometimes, a soloist, like a winning investment, can take the spotlight and mask the mistakes of the other instruments, but this is not a reliable strategy for a long-term harmony. No matter how talented a musician is, a single instrument cannot fully articulate a performance. Even though my portfolio had variety, it was not diversified. My investment portfolio was too focused on too few specific sectors, which left it at a major risk to what happens there. Being truly diversified would mean spreading my investments across many different industries, market caps, types of investments (e.g.: bonds, mutual funds, and short selling), and asset classes. My portfolio was lacking in bonds and various market capitalizations. Including these elements would have provided me with a steadier performance overall.
Having a diversified portfolio is essential for long-term success. It lessens your risk by spreading your investments across multiple areas of the market. This helps create steady and consistent returns over a longer period and, for the most part, prevents singular sectors and companies from ruining your portfolio. Diversification helps build financial security for future goals, whether it is paying off debts or preparing for retirement.
The Stock Market Game was a phenomenal learning experience which gave me a clearer understanding of how the market works as well as highlighting my strengths and weaknesses as a future investor. Throughout the game I made several strong choices, particularly in identifying potential growth opportunities, which reflected on my ability to spot market trends effectively and efficiently. At the same time, I also encountered challenges in maintaining a well-diversified portfolio, which emphasized the importance of balance in investing. Investing in the market is a lot like a symphony; to create harmony in your song, you need the right mix of instruments- all working together to perfect the sound. Diversification is the key to perfecting that harmony and making it last, ensuring that your financial prospects stay with the beat for the entire song.
About the SIFMA Foundation
The SIFMA Foundation is committed to closing the opportunity gap by fostering greater knowledge of the financial markets for young people of all backgrounds. Drawing on the support and expertise of educators and the financial industry, the Foundation provides financial education to strengthen economic opportunity across communities and increase awareness of the benefits of the global marketplace. Since 1977, the Foundation’s flagship program, The Stock Market Game™, has guided more than 23 million students on their path to financial independence by building their life skills, improving academic achievement, and boosting their social-emotional learning. For more information on the SIFMA Foundation, visit www.sifma.org/foundation.
About InvestWrite®
InvestWrite® is a culminating activity for Stock Market Game students that extends their classroom learning with a written challenge to address real-world financial issues. Students apply what they have learned in the Stock Market Game – critical thinking, portfolio analysis, and research on current events and market trends—and develop a long-term saving and investing strategy to achieve their goals and position themselves for financial success. Over 280,000 students have written essays reviewed by tens of thousands of teachers and more than 56,000 volunteer judges. Financial professionals volunteer their time each year to serve as essay reviewers and ensure young people are exposed to the essentials of personal finance early in life. For more information about InvestWrite®, visit www.investwrite.org.