A team of students are being pitted against the professionals in a project about investing in stocks.
The team, from The John Warner School, in Hoddesdon, will be competing against a team of professional investors over the course of a year to see who has the most success in their stock choices.
The two teams are also up against a rogue trader Orlando the cat, in the experiment organised by The Observer newspaper.
The teams will be able to change some of their choices every three months and readers of the paper will be updated on the progress of their portfolios throughout 2012.
A group of 11 pupils from years 11 to 13 at The John Warner School were chosen to take part in the challenge. They were picked from more than 30 hopefuls.
The school was chosen by the newspaper for the project after it was recently awarded the Personal Finance Education Group’s Centre of Excellence Award for its financial education lessons.
One of the team, year 13 pupil Lauren Tye, said: “I think we have a good chance as the people who do this for a living have a clouded judgment, whereas we are the market.
“We’re the ones buying these things. We know what people want.”
GCSE student Taylor Mack said of their other opponent Orlando the cat: “As a group we are quite confident we have good brands to compete with, especially against a cat.”
The John Warner team chose to invest in Mulberry, WM Morrison, Savills, British American Tobacco and Cable & Wireless.