Looking for a hot stock tip? Try calling Alan Villafan and his team.

Their portfolio recently increased 30 percent in only three months, earning more than $31,000. But there’s a catch – Villafan and his partners are still in middle school and the money isn’t real.

The eighth-grader at Maclay Middle School in Pacoima and his partners, Juan Gonzalez, Gabriel Galarza and Jason Bedolla, recently won first place in the Southern California region of the Stock Market Game, a national program that teaches students about math through hypothetical stock market investments.

To win the competition, the boys pretended to invest $100,000 in a 10-stock portfolio that included Nike, Cheesecake Factory and Big 5 Sporting Goods. When the online contest ended in April, they beat more than 1,000 teams from Southern California middle and high schools with their $131,100 final return.

The game was the team’s first exposure to the stock market.

“I didn’t really know anything about investing,” Villafan said. “But I learned that when things were down, it’s a good time to buy.”

Tim Henricks, an algebra teacher at Maclay, has entered his students in the game for the last eight years but doesn’t give them much guidance once they get started. He’s even taken advice from his students on occasion.

“If something does well, I’ll go out in real life and buy it,” he said.

To motivate the students, Henricks points to the possibility of a career in finance.

“I tell them that this could be a job for them one day,” he said.

But Villafan isn’t sure stock-picking is a viable career choice.

“I want to do something else for a job,” he said. “What if you have all your money invested and you lose it?”