Milton Hershey School Investment Club Launches with Success

Milton Hershey School students have the unique opportunity to gain hands-on experience from mentors with the MHS Career and Technical Education program.

Investment Officer of The Hershey Trust Company, Joshua Shannon, has taken interest in helping MHS students learn more about investments. After 20 years on Wall Street, Shannon believes stock investing is an area from which more students can benefit.

“Learning about investing and saving involves a lot of adult-life practical knowledge and skills that students will use no matter what they decide to do after MHS,” Shannon said. “Everyone knows what ‘money’ is but not many people know how money is managed or how important that can be to your future.”

This school year, MHS students along with the help of Shannon started the MHS Investment Club as part of the Business/Financial Management and Accounting career pathway. Throughout the fall, a team of 18 students were given $100,000 in “play money” to invest in the Stock Market Game. The MHS team competed against other participating investment clubs from schools across the Central Pennsylvania region and state.

“The team performed incredibly well,” Shannon said. “The portfolio gained about 17 percent (almost $17,000) over nine weeks. By comparison, the stock market gained 11 percent over the same period.”

The MHS team finished seventh out of 81 teams in Central PA and 36th out of 431 teams in the state. MHS senior Daylan Ward chose the top stock pick, “BioNTech” (one of the developers of the COVID-19 vaccine), which made almost 80 percent in eight weeks.

“It has been an amazing start for the Investment Club,” Shannon said. “I can’t wait to see what this group does next in the spring.”

Learn More About the Business/Financial Management and Accounting career pathway