Study Notes:
An interview with Dr. Karen Kunz
Q: Can you tell us a little about your role at West Virginia University?
I’m an associate professor at West Virginia University. I teach in the public administration department. I teach public finance and public budgeting, economic policy, fiscal policy, those types of things.
Q: How long have you been participating in the IBKR Student Trading Lab, and what attracted you to it?
It has probably been about 10 years that I’ve been using Interactive Brokers. I really wanted something that my students could paper trade. Having been in the industry, I knew what they could do.
Q: Can you describe a bit about the courses you teach and your learning objectives?
The students have to take apart a corporation and then a nonprofit entity, and then a state – and, actually, it’s a couple of each. They have to analyze and compare ratio analysis … that type of thing … fundamentals. Fundamental analysis. Underlying all of the analysis is economic policy, and so they have to understand how the Fed [Federal Reserve Bank], the markets, and government spending all work together. So as part of that, they paper trade for the entire semester.
Q: How do IBKR’s tools, offered through the IBKR Student Trading Lab, help you reach your learning objectives?
The course begins with the introduction to Interactive Brokers. As part of the very first class session, they begin to understand how they need to interact with the mobile apps. And then the Traders’ Academy, and the webinars [IBKR Webinars] take a load off of me. They’re learning about it and seeing it at the same time, which is a little different than I can do in the classroom. And it really … it’s a huge supplement to my teaching.
I have tutorials for them about what a stock is, what an option is, all the different types of investment instruments. Options are tricky to explain, especially to someone who just barely knows what a stock is, and the videos do a fantastic job of explaining that and explaining how to trade them in the platform.
So, I can use these videos as in class and actually homework assignments, and they’re everything from beginner to intermediate to more sophisticated, so as they understand more what they can do, they dive right in. They go from beginner to ‘old pro’ in 20 minutes. You can set up quizzes, and that I love, because that’ll make me make sure that the students are on the ball.
And, so, in addition to trading and reading, they’ve got other types of activities that they have to prep for, but they have to trade weekly. And the goal is to beat the indexes, and to beat me, and they get extra credit if they do either or both. So, they have to actively trade. They have to actively engage in all of the different instruments, from stocks to bonds, to options to currencies. And I check their accounts weekly. They can’t just invest in Apple and let it go for the semester.
The mobile app is fantastic. So, they only use the mobile apps, and it’s usually on their iPad or their phone and nine times out of 10, it’s on their phone. They can click on a stock, and they can go down and see more information about the company. They can go and see who the competitors are. They can see what industry they’re in. They can see performance over time. They can see what researchers have to say, or analysts have to say about it. It really is a help for them as they get into the analysis portion.
Q: What are some of the benefits you get as an educator from using IBKR’s tools?
The report management makes it super easy, because I give them their performance percentages every week, so they can see how they stack up against each other, and how they stack up against me and the indices. That’s been spectacular. The account management tools are terrific. I can check their accounts; I can look at how their assets are distributed. In addition to investing, they have to be cognizant of diversification. They can’t have too much, and they can’t be too heavy into any particular industry. If they are, then they have to write up why they are.
And, so, I teach fundamentals, but there are some students who want to understand how to use charts. If they want to take it further, they can, and they do. With Interactive Brokers, you just say, ‘Absolutely, here’s exactly where you can go to learn all of this. Everything you need is right here.’ I think it’s fantastic, and then I can go play with it, when I want to learn a little bit more on my own time.
Q: What are some success stories you can share, and how does the IBKR Student Trading Lab help your students beyond your course – after they’ve completed it?
I would say probably 50% of my students leave my class and open up brokerage accounts. They’re still in grad school, but they’ve got the bug. And it’s because of this…. It’s because of Interactive Brokers … and a large part of them, I can’t tell you how many of them have come back to me and said, ‘I have a retirement account in addition to my 401k now that I’m working, because I learned how to do this.’ And a lot of them will go into public service jobs, where they’ve got to negotiate pensions, or they’ve got to write up investment fund guidelines. And it’s because of this experience that they can do that.
Q: What would you say about the IBKR Student Trading Lab to other educators?
I would recommend this absolutely to anybody who’s teaching finance. I don’t want a different platform. I love this platform. It’s easy to use, it’s easy to teach, it’s easy to understand. The students love it, so I don’t want to change anything. I wouldn’t be able to teach my class if not for this.
Contact us by e-mail: ibstudenttradinglab@interactivebrokers.com
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