Day 4

Hi guys, sorry about this late update about day 4.

Today was the day that we went to Barclays Global Investors. Given the fact that this company manages 2 trillion dollars in assets management, it is no wonder that they have to use infocomm technology to their advantage over other asset management companies.

So firstly, we started off the day with a short introduction to the company. All the coporate stuff, like how much it is worth, what they do, how the work is split up into the different sections in the company. Mostly not really interesting stuff, until we got to the part where we role-played as traders in a mock trading game.

In this mock trading game, we had to manage the trading of 2 stocks, namely Barclays and Apple Inc.. Through buying and selling, we attempted to make a profit from the stocks, with prices fluctuating during the entire game. But the most important part of the game was not the profits, but whether we managed to record accurately the amount of stocks traded, together with the profits or losses.

Apparently, that was what decided the winner of the game and it was also supposedly really difficult to get the exact amount stated by the traders and the back office (the person keeping the books on all the trades). However, my team (Mr. Soon, Mrs. Chor, Me, Jiahui, Shuwen, Zewei) managed to get the exact amount of about $500,000++. This showed us how trading in the past (without technology) is completely different from today. With a click of a mouse today, we can sell millions of shares without having to keep tabs on it. The software will do it for us.

We won, winning ourselves a lovely BGI bag with lots of souvenirs from San Francisco each. The other groups also got the bag, without the souvenirs :)

With 2 trillion in assets, BGI played a good host, hosting us lunch and inviting one of their managers to speak to us during the lunch break.

After lunch, we had about 2/3 hours to burn cause the people from Stanford were hosting us at only 4pm. To do so, we made a trip to the NASA visitor centre :) It was really interesting and educational, letting us have a peek into the lives of astronauts in space, and also allowing us to see the current development of space technology.

Onward to Stanford University!!! Quite a short tour by two Singaporean students, however, since Mr. Soon knew the place rather well (he studied there!!!), we got a short tour from him too. We saw the library, the fountains (fountain hopping whee!!!), the church, the open field (forgot the actual name) and of course, the bookstore which apparently sells more of other stuff than books. It's a huge bookstore, but only half of the bottom floor sells books. The second floor sells stuff like shirts, sweatshirts, electronics (including Apple stuff), has a cafe, but NO BOOKS! Really expensive, unless you have a student's discount...

Oh and that day we went there was their graduation night, so there were shirts for the CLASS OF 2008!!! All the sec 4s bought one each, going to wear it on Mufti day! (correct class, wrong school XD)

After dinner, back to hotel. Sleep!!!

And backlog of other days will be fulfilled in the days to come. Right now, I am unable to sleep due to jet lag, therefore posting at 5.47am on the 19th of June.