1. FEBRUARY 21, 2014
CENTS ABILITY, INC.
VOLUNTEER CORNER
Connecting Working on Wall Street with
Teaching in the Classroom
By: David Peltier, Senior Volunteer Teacher and Stock Portfolio Manager at TheStreet
A lot of people I know assume that because I work on Wall Street (14 Wall, to be exact), I’m an
expert on all things money. That’s because there’s a mystique around high finance and investing,
which causes the eyes of the average person to glaze over after a few minutes of discussing the
global stock markets. Volunteer teachers who are in the business can certainly use this image to
their advantage, especially in the first five minutes of the class, where it’s imperative to gain the
students’ interest. It’s a great ice-breaker to say: “Hi, my name is David Peltier and I’m a stock
portfolio manager on Wall Street.”
Nine times out of 10, that silences even the most volatile room. I’m a New York transplant- 18
years removed- and have lived in four of the city’s five boroughs. Yet, I’m still amazed how many
students, even those who may show interest in working the industry themselves, have little or no
exposure to folks who work in the financial world on a daily basis. The fact of the matter is that
my nearly 20 years of classroom education and on-the-job investing experience doesn’t make me
better suited to teach the Cents Ability curriculum than any of the other fellow volunteer teachers
I’ve had the pleasure to meet and work alongside with over the past few years.
But the students don’t need to know that—just yet. A lot of my job at TheStreet, Inc. involves
boiling down seemingly complicated investment ideas and communicating them to the general
investing public. The good news with the Cents Ability curriculum is that a lot of this
demystification has already been done for the teacher. We use a bottom-up approach; starting
with the foundations of goal-setting and budgeting. Even though the early lessons don’t include a
lot of dollar signs, they’re imperative to understand banking, credit and investment ideas down.
The messages are simple, yet powerful:
CENTS ABILITY, INC.
VOLUNTEER CORNER

2. FEBRUARY 21, 2014
CENTS ABILITY, INC.
*Furthering your education beyond high school will likely increase you future earnings.
*By saving $5 a day ($2,000 a year) and investing it, anyone in this room can potentially have $1
million by the time they’re 60 years old.
*Personal finance includes all kinds of choices and by delaying my own saving until two years into
my career, I will likely cost myself $1 million in my own personal savings/investing potential.
The rest will fall into place around the curriculum and feel free to sprinkle in your own stories. My
personal favorite is about my best investment ever, which I talk about each time I teach Savings
and Banking (Module 3) and/or Investments (Module 5).
***
Back in Oct. 2005, I bought a 10-year CD yielding 6% (plus a free luggage set). I bring in the CD to
show the students, but gave the luggage to my sister eight years ago. Interest rates were higher
back then, but that’s still a sizable return to lock in for a decade, with little to no risk,
considering that stocks have only returned 8% to 10% over the past century.
It turns out you would have made 10% in one year and averaged 13% over two years, by buying the
broad S&P 500 index in the Fall of 2005. But take things out just one year further (into the Fall of
2008) and your average annual return drops to just a fraction of 1%, as the of the financial crisiswhich fell financial professionals saw coming- was rearing its head.
I’ll stop the history lesson here, but it took several more years for the broad stock market
investment to catch back up with the slow-and steady CD; and if you want to buy a long-term CD
today you’ll be lucky to get a 2% annual rate.
Contact Us:
c/o Societe Generale
245 Park Avenue – 5th Floor
New York, New York 10167
Phone Number: 212- 278-6144
Email: Info@cent’s-ability.org
@CentsAbilityInc
Visit our website at
www.cents-ability.org
CENTS ABILITY, INC.
VOLUNTEER CORNER