Extreme Losses

As part of the personal finance portion of my contemporary economics course, student spend $10,000 on a portfolio of the stocks of four companies and sell thirteen weeks later. Thus students hold the stocks for one quarter. Students bought their stocks on September 11, 2008 and sold on December 1, 2008. The S&P 500 over that time period lost 41%. Needless to say, students lost a bundle. The consolation is that the money was not real, so the losses are not real either.