With one million "virtual" dollars to invest, Garrett Bruno, 16, of Tequesta made $143,537.93 and finished +14.35% in only six weeks of buying and selling stocks. The competition was sponsored by the Florida Business Leaders of America (FBLA) at The Benjamin School in North Palm Beach, Florida. An honors AP US Government and Comparative Politics student, Garrett also follows political and economic news closely. "Virtual day-trading made the principles of US economics become exciting and real," he said. He attributes his overwhelming success to monitoring the market closely and paying close attention to the future earnings reports of target companies. He was honored with a trophy and presentation at a recent school assembly.

The competition was the Second Annual Free FBLA Stock Market Game for Benjamin School students using a website that specifically ran stock market games. Twenty students competed for forty days, without limitation on the number or the nature of their stock market trades.

The annual competition was initiated three years ago by Andrew Merson of North Palm Beach, a 2008 Benjamin graduate, and founder of the FBLA Club at the school. He will be attending the University of Florida Honors Program in the fall and plans to go on to a graduate business school afterwards.

"The purpose of the club is to educate and expose members to the characteristics and attributes necessary to be successful in business. We have gone to the FBLA District XX Conference the last two years and placed 2nd both years," he said. "I feel that the club has been successful in aligning its members with a general basis for knowledge in business and a foundation to be successful in college and the future."