Investopedia Market Madness Results: College students appear long on Facebook and Amazon, short on Snapchat

NEW YORK, May 9, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Investopedia, the premier online source of trusted financial information and services, today announced the results from the first-ever Market Madness Investing challenge, awarding prizes to three winners from U.S. universities based on final portfolio values. Overall contest trading activity also exposed a surprising range of positions on popular stocks, including a generally bearish attitude towards Snapchat, which recently went through its IPO.

Powered by Investopedia's Stock Simulator, the Market Madness Investing challenge provided students with $50,000 in virtual cash with prizes awarded to the three highest percentage gainers for use in investment funds. After a fierce competition, the winners were:

- First Place: Humza W. of Wayne State University received $10,000
- Second Place: Thomas G. of the John Carroll University received $3,000
- Third Place: Jacob S. of the University of South Florida received $1,000

Overall competition data revealed college students' sentiments toward stock-picking, including:

- Students buy what they know - some of the most popular stocks bought were Amazon, Facebook, Google and Netflix
- Bearishness on Snapchat, the third most shorted stock overall - which may indicate that despite its overall popularity as a social media platform, the tech unicorn may be viewed by some in the college student population as overvalued post-IPO
- Mixed sentiment towards Apple and Tesla, with students both buying and shorting positions in these stocks

'The results from our first Market Madness Investing challenge were astounding,' commented David Siegel, CEO of Investopedia. 'First, students used a number of complex and creative investing strategies to get better returns, including options trades. Second, although we expected stocks like Amazon to be popular, I was surprised to see shorting activity on popular stocks such as GoPro and Snapchat. Being able to get college students educated on and engaged in trading is part of our commitment to lifelong financial literacy. I was excited by the level of sophistication I saw in our winners' trading strategies.'

First place winner Humza W. utilized a risky trading strategy - he noted that he 'swing shorted microcap equities that had massive short-term price and volume spikes but no real change in the long-term fundamentals of the company.' The majority of Humza's returns was achieved through buying put options on Lululemon Athletica right before earnings.

Humza added, 'Thank you [Investopedia] for holding this amazing competition, and inspiring students, like myself, to learn more about financial markets.'

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