According to the Financial Health Network, 70% of Americans are financially unhealthy. Milford High School has a club that can help students become smarter with their money and avoid the current stigma. This Club is called the Finance Club, and it is committed to teaching Milford students how to manage and invest their money, to grow their wealth, and is dedicated to getting like-minded students together.
The club was founded by 2025 graduate Ryan Carrananto, who sought to create a space where students interested in finance and investing could come together and share their interests. After he graduated, he appointed member and friend Senior Nolan Treder as the new president of the club. At the start of the new school year, Treder had one goal in mind: to grow the club.
“I stepped in and took the role, and with the goal to bring the club back to life and increase membership,” he says. “I did notice that there were not a lot of young people in the club, and I wanted to ensure the club’s continual growth for the future.” He decided to start advertising the club, putting up posters and recruiting a member to create an Instagram profile. With these methods, Treder grew the club to a total of 52 current members. As a member since the formation of the club, Senior Jacob Schrader noted, “I think it’s very good for the club. You know if there was one thing he [Treder] has done better, it has been growing the club.”
The meetings of the Finance Club involve teaching various investing techniques, as well as ways to avoid investing your money. Part of how Treder put this across is with several lecture-like slideshow presentations to teach the members of the club.
As the activity for the year for the club, Treder elected to teach students how to invest their money and have them practice it. “We run a mock portfolio competition where each player is given 100 grand to start the competition, and they invest in real stocks, which have real results,” Treder said. He implemented an exciting and fun way for the students to practice their skills of investing in the stock market competition style, while nullifying the risk of any real loss. The simulation is run through a Stock Data and News Website, MarketWatch, which has a built-in stock market simulation game that any person can use to create a competition.
For the first month of the year, the club ran a practice simulation, in which many members competitively faced off against each other to determine who could make the most money within the month-long timeframe.
After the month’s end, Junior Mia Vivian was declared the winner of the first simulation, having earned a total of $50,096.04 from the initial sum of $100,000. Starting the meeting after the simulation ended, the group is now in a year-long simulation, with the winner earning a prize towards the end of the year. “I learned how to research projections for stocks in the future.” Vivian comments. Providing insight to her success. Vivian is a new member of the club this year, as a result of the marketing Treder has been pushing.
Overall, the Finance Club is dedicated to helping students interested in finance and investing put their passion into practice while teaching them more about various business-related subjects. While it flew under the radar last year, the club has expanded greatly and is now able to reach more students who are interested in finance or would like to learn more about and potentially start investing. The club meets semi-regularly during seminar in room 319, and meetings are announced earlier in the week, both on the Google Classroom and on the Instagram page; @mhs_finance_club.
(Charlie Lagodzinski)
