THE winning school in a stock market competition made £1,000 in real cash by ditching its Leeds United shares.

The crucial move by Stockton Sixth Form College won it the Wise Speke School Share Portfolio Competition. The team of Chris Iredale, David McGowan and Darren Walker, were praised for a well-deserved victory by Anthony Platts of Wise Speke stockbrokers, which ran the competition in conjunction with the Darlington and Stockton Times.

He said: "Stockton Sixth Form College realised that, owing to the short-term nature of the investment competition, a degree of risk was required to win.

"While we would not expect to see this level of risk in our clients' real money personal portfolios, the team knew that the other teams would also target more speculative investments. Stockton SFC, among the other leading teams, had the right strategy of gaining the appropriate balance between solid blue chip stocks and riskier companies.

"Conyers School in Yarm held the lead for most of the competition, owing to take-over rumours boosting the value of their holding of Egg shares. The lead was allowed to slip away, however, by not taking profits on the initial share price surge.

"Stockton SFC won the competition thanks to their punt on PC Medics Group. The loss-making pharmaceutical company reported vastly improved results, with two weeks of the competition to go, causing the share price and the team's holding to more than double.

"The crucial winning strategy for Stockton SFC was to cut losses on their holding of troubled Leeds United. Leeds shares were also held by other teams, but by failing to sell in time those teams saw their overall portfolio values decimated.

"The team deserves warm congratulations in solidly outperforming the market for a well-deserved victory."

The Stockton college was presented with a cheque for £1,000 and the three team members each received £40 of CD vouchers.