Day 6 - Sara Avalos

                                                            Buy GME! GME! GME!

Today, in our Personal Finance J-Term, we answered an opening question that got us thinking about commodities and the significance of gold. After this, we reflected on the total amount of money we have received until now, established our net worth (which isn’t super high), and compared it to our estimated net worth in the future. We followed this up with three very informative student presentations. These presentations talked about commodities, contracts (options and futures), and aggregates (mutual funds). In the afternoon, we had a seminar discussion on two chapters from The Richest Man in Babylon and two chapters from The Complete Guide to Money. Finally, we watched the new Netflix documentary Eat the Rich: The Gamestop Saga Part 1.


I learned a lot today. I thought it was interesting to learn about Contracts and their correlation to commodities. From my understanding, futures seem more binding since you have to buy or sell what is in the contract on the maturity date. They are considered high risk since there are no limits on your gains or losses. While on the other hand, options contracts can be sold on or before the established maturity date. There are small premiums that you need to pay, but there are high profits and limited profits. To limit losses in future contracts, you need to do a fundamental analysis(researching all aspects of a stock, not just the past chart behaviors). I enjoyed watching the Netflix documentary because it shows how social media can affect the market and cause influential mutual fund companies to collapse while further emphasizing Gordon Gekko’s speech on how everyone is greedy. The part of the movie that impacted me most was when they realized that taking money from other millionaires, but in doing so, you are creating new ones. I think this realization further emphasizes the idea that in our society, the lower and middle classes do not win. This documentary also highlights the benefits of sharing information through social media and how social influence can change.