Dear Stock Market Game Participants:

Happy International Women's Day! As mentioned last week, the SIFMA Foundation will be celebrating women's contributions to the financial markets throughout the month! We're excited to announce on Friday, March 12 at 9 am ET/ 6 am PT Georgie Badeil will be joining our weekly SMG Instagram Live! With our SMG host, Sara Bryant, Badiel will discuss her background as a sustainability activist, supermodel, and author, and will lay the groundwork for her upcoming webinar in the SIFMA Foundation Sustainability Influencer Series on Mon, March 22 at 11 am ET/ 8 am PT. Register here! To join our Instagram SMG Live, search @sifmafoundation. You won't want to miss it!

As many SMG sessions have reached the half way mark, it's a great time to ensure you know the SMG rules - how to access them in your portfolio and that you fully understand them (since many states provide prizes to the top teams that meet all program guidelines). If you are frustrated by the performance of some of your investment choices, perhaps you should think about dividend-paying stocks to ensure returns in a market that has been a bit of a roller coaster the last few months. Especially now, receiving a dividend check is a welcome relief for many investors. For novices, corporations may pay part of their earnings as dividends to shareholders as a return on their investment. These dividends, which are often declared quarterly, are usually in the form of cash, but may also be paid as additional shares. Investors may be able to reinvest the cash dividends automatically to buy additional shares if the corporation offers a dividend reinvestment program (DRIP).

Increasing or at least maintaining its dividend payment in the current economy suggests company strength. For more information about stocks paying dividends, take a look at Nasdaq's dividend history page. The Nasdaq site provides a wealth of information on how dividends work, when they get paid, and a company's history of dividend payouts.

To check whether or not a particular company offers a dividend payment, enter a ticker symbol on the “Enter a Trade” page of your portfolio. Click “Validate Ticker.” The company’s stock quote will appear. If a dividend is paid, the payment will appear beside the “Dividend” column. The payment date will also be listed, but you need to pay attention to the Ex. Date column, as this is the date by which the team must have owned the stock in order to receive the next dividend payment.

Have a great week ahead!

Best regards,

Elizabeth Reidel

National Director

SIFMA Foundation

[email protected]

College Board sent a rather detailed response to my last inquiry about the Lockdown Browser. If you are using a school-issued device (IIRC, those are where most of the problems have been) there is a specific version to download and, if it keeps asking you for an administrator login, you've got the wrong one. It still has to be installed by an administrator; I have forwarded the information to Mr. Searles to assist you.

Here are the tips from College Board if you are still having problems . . . 

Troubleshooting tips for students can be found here: https://nam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fapclassroom.clickhelp.co%2Farticles%2F%23!ap-classroom-user-guide-for-students%2Fstu-ldb-troubleshooting&data=04%7C01%7Ckastuto%40dadeschools.net%7C815e9d884c674eaf054308d89c511d3b%7C4578f68f86cd4af9b31793e3826ca0f5%7C0%7C1%7C637431220606713208%7CUnknown%7CTWFpbGZsb3d8eyJWIjoiMC4wLjAwMDAiLCJQIjoiV2luMzIiLCJBTiI6Ik1haWwiLCJXVCI6Mn0%3D%7C1000&sdata=BzjwscqghAyA5pG7LNKeVAX43LcO3DoiLbMgqWntxWc%3D&reserved=0

Additional Troubleshooting Help:

If the information in the troubleshooting guide does not help resolve the issues your students are encountering please confirm the following information which we can share with our technical support team that will help to investigate the issue:

Detailed Description of how/where they got the error:
Name of Assessment:
Names or APUID of Students:
What device are they using:
What browser are they using:
Is it a School Managed Device:
Attach a screenshot, with the URL visible, if available

I hope this helps!