The KPMG Investment Challenge is under way — and CedarBridge Academy team Checkerboards are making the early running.

Checkerboards’ virtual stock portfolio achieved the strongest growth of all 20 teams, putting them at the top of the rankings on the first valuation date of November 28.

The team’s portfolio gained 4.4 per cent, adding $4,403.24 to the $100,000 in virtual capital that they started with.

Hard on Checkerboards’ heels were two Warwick Academy teams, The Wolves of Warwick and Trader Jax, both of whom also achieved a return of more than four per cent.

In fourth place were The Navigators, the second of three CedarBridge teams, with a return of 3.57 per cent.

The Royal Gazette will be following the fortunes of all the teams throughout the six-month challenge, which will culminate in a prize-giving ceremony on April 30 next year at the Bermuda Society of Arts, after the rankings are calculated on the final valuation date of April 24.

The young Checkerboards, all six of whom study in the Accounts class taught by Latoya Francis, comfortably outperformed the S&P 500 Index, which gained 2.45 per cent in November.

In an interview, the team members revealed a portfolio weighted heavily toward the technology sector, including names such as Apple, Google, Amazon, Yahoo, Microsoft and Activision Blizzard.

Lukas Cabral, 16, said: “We looked at upcoming events that might affect the stocks, such as Black Friday and Christmas.”

Kaisha Simons, 15, added: “We also invested in some airlines, because people are always travelling around Christmas time.”

Jahmai Small, 16, said: “We looked at how the stocks performed in the past to work out how they might perform in the future.”

Satiqua Butterfield-Wade, 16, said that each team member had contributed two stock names after doing their own research of companies.

Also in the team are Malik Salaam and Tamara Jackson.

KPMG logs the children’s’ trades and provides an online tracker that allows team members to follow their stocks’ progress. The Checkerboards have been logging on regularly and enjoying a very successful first month.

The rules governing the challenge require the teams to have no more than $10,000 in cash at any one time, and no stock’s valuation can comprise more than 10 per cent of total capital.

Teams are given a total of 100 virtual trades they can execute not only on the New York and Nasdaq Stock Exchanges, but also on exchanges in London, Toronto, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Sydney, Toronto, Mexico City and Berlin.

Mrs Francis believes the challenge is a healthy exercise for her students. “It gives them the opportunity to see a different side of business and provides them with knowledge of different career options,” she said. “And later in life, when they start thinking about retirement, they will know something about how to invest their own funds.”