The blockage of the Suez Canal caused global economic turmoil, which goes to show just how interdependent world economies have become. With April marking the beginning of Financial Literacy Month, I’m going to look at the most accessible form of stock market investment resources available to students.

For example, NC State University Libraries offers access to a myriad of resources that are listed on their “Finance and Investing” page. I spoke to Shaun Bennett, the research librarian for business, education and data literacy at NC State University Libraries, about some of the stock market resources available to students. 

“Our main database is Morningstar; it has a ton of resources and recommendations for various stocks, in-depth discussions of individual equities and discussion about the companies behind them,” Bennett said. “The best part is that you can continue to access it after graduation. All you need is a public library card; this is courtesy of NC LIVE Consortium.” 

These are the resources for stocks and company research that are available to the Wolfpack community until graduation, as suggested by Bennett.

Likewise, I’m also going to break down my thoughts on three micro-investing apps I experimented with over the past year. 

Robinhood is an active commission free trading platform that specialises in penny stocks and the first app I started using. This was also my least favorite app among the three due to hidden resources and delayed communication. Acorns, on the other hand, is a long-term passive investing app that diversifies spare change in pre designed portfolios. While the downside of this app is a $1 commission fee every month, I found the portfolios to be a great first step to understanding and designing my own investments. 

My favorite app, however, was Public: the third app I discovered and the one I was the most successful with. This is primarily an investment app, but unlike Acorns, the portfolios have customization features that can reflect which companies you think are worth the gamble. Unlike Robinhood, Public also offers fractional shares. Users have the liberty to choose which companies they would like to invest in and what percentage of a share they would like to own, with its social feature new investors have easy access to information.

While learning about the stock market seems like the most challenging step, it is crucial for us to regain control of the economy.  The percentage of Americans invested in the stock market is at its lowest point in over two decades, and as the stock market recovers from the depression, fewer people are benefitting, which leads to widening inequality. The top 10% of the wealthiest in America control 84% percent of all of Wall Street portfolios’ value. To give you more perspective, as of 2019, the average CEO makes 287 times more than the median worker. 

NC State students have access to three Bloomberg terminals on the ninth floor of D.H. Hill Jr. Library, and these terminals host an incredible amount of accessible information and explanations students should capitalize on. In our discussion, Bennett also spoke about the Bloomberg terminals being an all encompassing resource for new investors.

A complete list of commands and functionalities have been compiled for NC State students here.

The dawn of the internet has let people educate themselves about this complex system and trade stocks much in the same way as large investors. Micro-investing with the appropriate research gives us perspective and a little hands-on experience as we build our own portfolios. No matter what the amount, invest right now — your future self will thank you for it.