Stocks > Fruit

I’m supposed to be lesson planning right now, but all I can do is watch the stocks on Wall Street go crazy. Markets have just opened in the States on Monday morning and after the news of what happened in the financial market over the weekend ... all I can say is “whoa.”

Lehman Brothers (LEH) filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy after it wasn’t able to find any buyers for its apparently suffering company. I had not been keeping updated enough and didn’t even know there was financial troubles with LEH. I guess I didn’t pay enough attention to them because they are (were) a relatively large company. This goes to show that large companies can have large debts as well. Like $613 BILLION in debt.

Bank of America (BAC) also acquired Merrill Lynch (MER) over the weekend. This is a pretty large acquisition. One which did the usual of lowering the stock price of BAC and raising the stock price of MER. Expected financial results when it comes to mergers and acquisitions. What was NOT expected was just how much MER’s stock price jumped. I thought maybe like $1. Last I checked, up $5+!!

This is all pretty big financial news. Much more interesting than lesson planning for little Chinese kids a lesson about different types of fruits.

“What fruit is it?”
“[apple]!”
“What color is it?”
“red!”

What if instead I taught them:

“What do you do with stocks?”
“Buy low!”
“And then..?”
“Sell high!”

Now THAT is a good lesson.