Ron Speaker, founder of The Finance Camp, awards Emma Jane Mallory, a freshman at Aspen High School, with $5,000 for winning an investing competition with Speaker’s Finance Camp.
An Aspen High School freshman won $5,000 for competing in an investing competition with the Carbondale-based Finance Camp. But the bigger prize she’s taking home is newfound knowledge of investing and increased financial literacy, she said.
Emma Jane Mallory was one of 12 students enrolled in The Finance Camp in June 2023. Ron Speaker, a longtime Carbondale resident, started the camp to teach young adults in the valley how to invest and save money. While the camp ran for one week in June, the students — 14-15 years old — competed in an investing competition until the end of the year in which they put their investment skills to the test to buy and sell stocks strategically. The student who made the most money at the end of the year won the grand prize.
Mallory won by just $9.
The investing competition was a culmination of skills Speaker taught students during the weeklong Finance Camp. He started the program to help students in the Roaring Fork Valley make smarter decisions with their money.
Students who enrolled in the camp were given $500 on the first day after completing 25 hours of community service. They were given $750 after completing a 25-question financial literacy exam. They were then taught how to buy and sell stocks and create an investing profile using the money provided by Speaker.
Speaker taught students how to invest in companies strategically, showing them how to use current events to inform their purchase and how to know when to get rid of a stock.
“I would encourage them to be patient,” Speaker said. “It’s a really difficult job, and we have an election day ahead of us and there’s some big concern some stocks will go down… but (Mallory) has this amazing firepower and knows how to do it strategically.”
He also encouraged them to invest in companies they already know and love.
Mallory invested in several companies including Target and Lululemon, which she said helped her win in the end.
“Ron told us to choose brands that we know and we like to shop a lot, so I started off with Target and Lululemon,” Mallory said. “I did some more research on articles, and my family just bought an electric car so I decided to invest in new electric car companies.”
To earn the first $500, Mallory volunteered for the Aspen Youth Center, a nonprofit that offers programs to children in grades 4-12. She won the competition after earning about $1,500, and she plans to invest that and the additional $5,000.
Winning excited Mallory, but the skills she learned are invaluable, she said.
“I feel like it’ll be very good to keep investing, pay for some college,” Mallory said. “I feel like also I can just help my friends out because it actually is very helpful to know and I’ve made money from it already.”
“I honestly think just letting my friends and family know so it can spread and other people can invest too, that’s my main goal,” she added.
Applications for the 2024 Finance Camp are open at thefinancecamp.com. The camp runs from June 10-14, and serves students from Aspen to Glenwood Springs.