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An all-girl team from Astley Community High School in Whitley Bay has won first prize in this year's ifsProShare Student Investor Portfolio Challenge. The A-level Astley girls, called Teammonica, beat off 30,000 students from over 800 schools to scoop the top prize of £2,000 plus an all-expenses paid trip to New York. Each team had to invest £100,000 in a fantasy portfolio over three months from November 2004 to the end of January. The girls made it into the final by achieving a 17% return on their investment, beating the FTSE All-Share Index that gained 4% over the same period. Interestingly, Teammonica did not achieve the highest returns of the six finalists. A group of boys from The Royal Grammar School in High Wycombe, for instance, made a 20% gain on their fantasy portfolio. The boys went on to win the title of "Online Trader of The Year" after posting a staggering 53% gain on a £100,000 fantasy portfolio invested from February to April. However, it was the girls who clinched the coveted prize with their supplementary economics dissertation and a presentation on how to improve financial education in British schools. The dissertation looked at the economic impact of placing limits on individual borrowing. They also scrutinized interest rates for store and credit cards as well as the effects of tax concessions for private investors. It is worth bearing in mind, though, that make-believe portfolios specially constructed for short-term competitions prove little about the stock-picking ability of the finalists. The true test is whether the contestants can deliver above-market returns year after year. Additionally, short-run competitions tend to place unrealistic time limits on the contestants. Consequently, there may be a higher tendency to adopt a Monte Carlo-or-Bust attitude, which is highly unlikely when real money and savings are involved. Nevertheless, it is reassuring to see young Britons tackling difficult topics such as investments, individual borrowing, credit cards and complex taxes issues. Furthermore, achieving above-market returns on shares requires an understanding of the balance of risk to reward. This should stand the students in good stead because they need to start thinking about investing real money now if they want to retire in comfort in fifty years time!