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West Iredell High School students got instruction on a little bit of everything from U.S. Rep. Virginia Foxx on Monday.

The six-term congresswoman for the 5th District visited Ms. Brooke Campbell’s personal finance class as part of an event called the SIFMA Foundation Capitol Hill Challenge, which has taken place for more than a decade and includes something called the Stock Market Game.

The Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA) is an industry trade organization that represents companies in the securities, banking, and finance management industries.

But Foxx’s helpful words were not restricted to the clinical talk of “buy low/sell high” during her more than two-hour visit with the class and West Principal Gordon Palmer.

“Everything is education,” Foxx said in trying to parse out what things applied to her planned lessons and which were more off the cuff. “It’s all education.”

At one point she said to student Anthony Ross, “Try to pick up that pencil,” which lay on the desk in front of him.

Ross, a senior, quickly picked it up, and Foxx expanded on what students may have thought to be a subtle distinction.

“When you try to do something, you’re not actually doing it; you’re only trying to do it,” she said and allowed a moment for the students to reflect.

“When you do,” she added, “you do.”

Campbell’s class is part of the CTE Program (Career and Technical Education) at West that helps students prepare for the real world.

Students learned that interest is a sword that cuts both ways and an example was used in which students had to purchase an imaginary door for a house. They learned that if they paid cash for the door, it would cost $300, but if they bought it on credit with the terms and conditions offered, they would pay about $800 for the door.

“That is counter opposite of investment,” Foxx said. “When you invest your money, it gains interest. When you buy on credit, you pay interest.”

Campbell teaches her students that only two purchases in their lives should be ones in which credit is considered: their homes and their vehicles.

“Everything else, when possible, should be paid for with cash,” she said.

Regarding the Stock Market Game, student Hong Zhang learned that choosing stocks is a speculation at first but the real investors notice things.

“It was guesswork when we started,” Zhang said. “But you start to notice trends and the guesses became more educated as we went along.”

Foxx, a former educator, noted that even the great investors like Warren Buffet aren’t bulletproof when it comes to the stock market.

“They call him the 'Oracle of Omaha,' ” she said. “But even Warren Buffet gets it wrong sometimes.”

http://www.statesville.com/news/students-get-rep-foxx-s-lessons-on-financial-responsibility/article_81f4e924-f2a2-11e4-abf8-1fa8f788c400.html