A Blog about Investing, Finance and Market Insights
by a Student for Students.
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What is Compounding?
9th grade finally ended, and summer break started right away. But instead of relaxing, I jumped straight into summer school session 1 at my high school. Right after that, I spent a month at the University of Chicago YSP program, which was intense but amazing. On top of that, I started studying for the ACT and SAT for the very…
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Can You Start with Just Ten Dollars?
When I first started reading about investing, I thought you needed thousands of dollars to buy stocks. That felt impossible for me as a student. But then I heard about something called fractional shares, and it completely changed my perspective. Fractional shares mean you can buy just a piece of a stock instead of the whole…
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Why Do Stock Prices Move?
After learning about stocks, ETFs, and the S&P 500, I had a new question in mind. Why do stock prices move? When I check my virtual portfolio, some prices are higher than yesterday. Others are lower. But what’s behind all that movement? I thought there might be a simple answer, like a company doing well…
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When Tariffs Hit My Portfolio
After February’s first tariffs, I thought maybe the market had already adjusted. But on April 2, 2025, President Trump called it “Liberation Day.” After February’s first tariffs, I thought maybe the market had already adjusted. But on April 2, 2025, something much bigger hit – President Trump called it “Liberation Day.” On that day, he announced a 10%…
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Trump’s First Tariff Strike
When I started reading about the stock market, I thought politics was just background noise. But on February 1, 2025, politics jumped right into the center of the market. That was the day President Trump announced the first round of tariffs. He put a 25% tariff on most goods from Canada and Mexico, and a…
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Not All S&P 500 ETFs Are the Same
After writing about the S&P 500, I thought I had it figured out. SPY tracks the S&P 500.The S&P 500 tracks the market.So just buy SPY and you’re done, right? But then I did some more research.And I found out there are actually lots of ETFs that track the S&P 500.Not just SPY — there’s…
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What Is the S&P 500?
After I learned about SPY and ETFs, I kept hearing about the S&P 500. SPY is supposed to follow it. Investors watch it every day. News anchors talk about it like it’s the whole market. So what is the S&P 500? It’s not a company. It’s an index. The S&P 500 is a list of…
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What Is an ETF?
Last week, I learned that buying a stock means owning part of a company. That made me wonder something. If I want to own more than one company, do I have to buy a bunch of stocks separately?That could get complicated fast. What if there was a way to buy one thing that gave me…
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How Can a Student Open a Brokerage Account?
After I learned what a broker is, I got excited. Then I realized something: I am still in high school. Can I even open an account? The answer is no, not by myself. Most brokers require you to be at least 18 years old to open a normal account. At first that felt unfair. I…
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What Is a Stock? A Slice of Ownership
After starting this blog, one word kept popping up again and again. Stock. People said things like “the stock market is up” or “I’m investing in stocks.”But I realized I didn’t really know what a stock actually was. So I asked my dad. “What is a stock, exactly?” A stock is a piece of a…
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