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11-year-old Garrett Dzurinko’s Recipe for Investing Makes Him National First Place Winner of SIFMA Foundation’s Spring 2016 InvestWrite® Competition

Smarter than a fifth grader? Think again!
Dzurinko’s Winning Investment Advice Astonishes

Parker, CO, June 1, 2016– Imagining the competition for lemonade stands in the summertime has earned an 11-year-old from Colorado more than a few nickels. It has made him the national winner of the SIFMA Foundation’s Spring 2016 InvestWrite® competition. Garrett Dzurinko, a 5th-grader at Pine Lane Elementary School, won first place nationally in the elementary school division of InvestWrite. The program challenges students to consider an investing scenario and make recommendations that incorporate short- and long-term financial goals.

“Garrett’s recipe for success for long-term investing earned him the SIFMA Foundation’s ‘InvestWrite Genius’ title this semester,” said Melanie Mortimer, President of the SIFMA Foundation. “We commend Garrett and his teacher, Stephanie Kawamura, for this achievement. Helping students better understand our economy, our markets, the role of investors, competition, and how to make good investments will pay dividends for their education, their communities, and the Colorado economy.”

InvestWrite serves as a culminating activity for 600,000 4th-12th graders nationwide who compete each year in the SIFMA Foundation’s Stock Market Game™, an online simulation of the global capital markets that reinforces STEM learning, 21st Century skills, economics, investing and personal finance. Since InvestWrite’s inception in 2004, almost 188,000 students have submitted essays. Garrett Dzurinko is among 20,000 students this school year taking the InvestWrite challenge, which bridges classroom learning in mathematics, social studies, and language arts with the practical research and knowledge required for long-term personal financial planning.

The Spring 2016 InvestWrite essay challenged students to imagine the challenges of running a successful lemonade stand if their competitors set up shop a block away, comparing the situation to the real-life business world. It asked students to choose a company that, in the face of their competition, would make a good long-term investment and explain why. Dzurinko selected Under Armour. “Warren Buffet said it best about long term investing when he stated, ‘Only buy something you would be perfectly happy to hold if the market shut down for 10 years,’” Dzurinko wrote. “I would be happy to have Under Armour (UA) in my stock portfolio long term. Under Armour is a relatively new company to the competitive sports apparel consumer goods industry, thus giving the company greater room to grow and its investors the opportunity for a greater rate of return.”

InvestWrite enables students like Dzurinko to develop the personal financial savvy needed to make practical financial decisions with confidence and gain a deeper understanding of economic opportunities, consequences, and benefits. Students consider real-world events and news, conduct research online, and develop investment recommendations. They work in groups during the Stock Market Game program and then write their InvestWrite essays individually to reflect their critical thinking, analysis and creative talents.

In addition to excelling at essay writing, Dzurinko is an avid reader and enjoys computer programming and gaming. His teacher, Stephanie Kawamura, has been using the Stock Market Game in her classroom for more than 10 years. Kawamura teaches a self-contained, ⅚ combo, gifted and talented class for the Douglas County School District’s Discovery Program in Parker, Colorado. Stephanie’s passion is helping students discover a path to autonomous learning while creating an environment that is trusting, exciting, and highly engaging. Kawamura said, “Students are encouraged to embrace leadership roles and to be responsible for their own learning. The Stock Market Game and the InvestWrite program are wonderful ways to include real-world learning opportunities in the daily curriculum.”

Winning InvestWrite essays are chosen through rigorous judging by thousands of teachers and industry professionals who evaluate students’ understanding of long-term investing, diversification, the capital markets, and factors that drive investments as well as their expression of investment ideas in essay form.

An independent study by Learning Point Associates found that students who participated in the SIFMA Foundation’s Stock Market Game scored significantly higher on mathematics and financial literacy tests than their peers who did not participate. They also found that teachers who taught The Stock Market Game reported that the program motivated them to better plan for their own financial futures. The Stock Market Game has been named the only program that successfully increased scores on the Jumpstart Coalition’s test of high school students’ financial literacy.

Dzurinko and Kawamura will be honored at an event to be held at Pine Lane Elementary School, 6485 East Ponderosa Drive, Parker, CO on June 1, 2016 at 12:00 PM MT.

Winning Essay by Garrett Dzurinko:  Under Armour: The Growing Adolescent

Warren Buffet said it best about long term investing when he stated, “Only buy something you would be perfectly happy to hold if the market shut down for 10 years.” I would be happy to have Under Armour (UA) in my stock portfolio long term. Under Armour is a relatively new company to the competitive sports apparel consumer goods industry, thus giving the company greater room to grow and its investors the opportunity for a greater rate of return.
Under Armour’s products appeal to kids of my generation.  Therefore, I was interested to learn more about them through The Stock Market Game. My group didn’t include UA in our portfolio because the majority voted to include Nike (NKE), as Nike’s stock was higher than Under Armour’s at the time. As the minority, I voted for Under Armour because I believed they had more room to grow long term. Nike’s stock is believed to have already hit their all-time high in 2015 because both the U.S. and overseas markets have been saturated with Nike products. Fifty percent of Nike’s revenue is from overseas sales, while UA only has 13% of its revenue coming from the overseas markets. Under Armour has greater growth abroad potential than Nike because of this.
UA, Nike, and Adidas design, develop and market similar premium sports apparel and products globally. The three brands are the three largest retailers in their industry, thus making them all competitors. Nike and Adidas are both older established companies compared to Under Armour, which was established in 1996. UA is competing for market share by stepping into the footwear industry. It is now the official footwear supplier for the NFL, and developing their NBA line with the Curry Basketball line. UA has seen significant growth in their new footwear line, posting a 95% increase in the fourth quarter of 2015. Another new focus area for UA is its fitness applications. They are trying to empower their consumers to live an active and healthier lifestyle by providing these platforms and at the same time giving UA important information for developing future products. They are directly competing against Nike for market share in this area.
Under Armour is growing-up right alongside my generation, Generation Z. My generation has never known a world without UA in it. They have posted solid double-digit growth in both sales and earnings over the past five years and are projecting a 25% increase in net revenue for 2016. My parents’ generation, Generation X, grew up with the rise of Nike and Adidas. Generations X and Y make up 65% of the workforce population and they have the greatest consumer purchasing power. Like most kids my age, our parents (from these generations) outfit us in the latest and most popular apparel branded by UA. UA takes advantage of my generation’s wants by marketing heavily to us through showcasing their products via sponsorships with professional athletes. We love watching our favorite athletes compete and at the same time model Under Armour products.
Overall, Under Armour is a strong long term investment because it has room to grow in future years showing strengths in multiple areas: robust revenue growth, innovative product lines, and their current small market penetration in overseas markets. The trend for the future is that the athletic wear industry will continue to grow at a vigorous rate, therefore making UA an attractive long term investment for one’s stock portfolio.