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A team of aspiring financiers from Albany High School took second place on Wednesday at the Junior Achievement Stock Market Challenge.

Shakif Ahnaf, Justin Rattray, Nolan Sweet and Tayab Talukder finished as Albany High's top team. Theirs was one of 19 from Albany High at the event, which drew more than 400 students from eight area schools.

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The winners all are students in teacher Christopher Austen’s college-level advanced business math classes at Albany High. (They are, pictured from left, Austen, Sweet, Ahnaf, Talukder and Rattray, along with a JA representative).

The challenge simulates the real stock market and allows students to buy and sell stocks. Teams competed in a race to accumulate the highest portfolio while learning the nuances of investing, trading, strategy, why companies issue stock, how actions in one place of the world impact the value of stock in another place, and why the stock market is an integral part of our free enterprise system.

Each team began the game with $1 million trading dollars to invest in fictitious stock. Once the trading began, every 60 seconds was a new trading day in a volatile market.

Players tracked their stock portfolio and their team’s standings on three massive screens, and teams bought and sold stocks from “traders” that instantly sent trades to the system. Teams traded for two thirty-minute periods.

Albany High’s Ahnaf, Rattray, Sweet and Talukder finished with the second-highest worth. They earned a trophy, and each took home a $100 gift card.

The Junior Achievement Stock Market Challenge was held at the University at Albany, which sponsored the event along with Broadview and Junior Achievement of Northeastern New York.