Financial literacy has become a recent popularity amongst teens.

This year, junior Krish Gupta-Garcia started the Wharton Investment Club as a way to introduce investing to the students of Venice High.

Social studies teacher Ahsan Minhas is the sponsor, who also teaches economics classes.

Current student knowledge on investing, according to Gupta-Garcia, is not where it should be.

“People understand crypto and the meme stocks, but that’s not a good idea of what investing is about because obviously there’s a lot of volatility—you can make a lot but you can also lose a lot,” Gupta-Garcia said.

 The Wharton Investment Club participates in a competition, run by the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business.

In the competition, students work in groups to invest in. Students are given a certain amount of  fake money, and they implement different strategies to purchase stocks.

The stocks that students invest in are based on a stock’s real value. Students are not judged based on their return percentage, but on how well their implemented strategies work in relation with their portfolio’s goals.

Minhas said that the club will teach students valuable investment skills.

“A lot of students, just for lack of a better term, are doing the whole YOLO kind of investment approach,” he said. “This club will get students a better understanding of what investment is and help students understand what they’re looking for when they invest their money.” 

According to Minhas, the club, although informal, can and will provide a formal education on investing.

“I think what this club does, or will do, is it will allow students to understand investing in a more holistic sense,” he said. “Why is it important to have a diverse portfolio? How do we identify what we should invest in?”

Gupta-Garcia said that he hopes that the club will help students develop strong financial instincts in the future.