Learning how to invest in the stock market with your own cash can have you losing a lot of cash due to your inexperience. A stock market game is designed to help you bridge this learning period. To play the game, you are allocated dummy cash and using this money, you can try out your investment decisions on the real market. The purpose of the game is to enable you gain reasonable investment experience and confidence in a risk free trading environment before trading your real money in the real market
Most stock market games work in a similar way. They will allocate you a dummy trading account with an amount of money, though not real, to help you learn how to trade in the stock market. The game also has a trading platform through which you can buy and sell stocks, bonds mutual funds and options. To enable you have a real experience of the stock market, the stock statistics used in the dummy trading platform are the real statistics of the stock market. This means that you can review your investments just as if you had invested real money and therefore giving you a real hands on experience.
Many of these mock market game variations run as team games. In this case, you will be placed in a team that will compete against other investing teams. The game is usually set to run for a month with each team starting with a similar amount of dummy cash allocation. A team interacting forum is also set for every team to enable team members discuss and consult about investment decisions.
Before participating in the trading game, every team member is expected to have a fundamental understanding about the stock market and about the various stock assets. If you do not have this knowledge, you can always get this information from a basics trading information section available with most stock market games. Once you have acquainted yourself with these basics, you can proceed to playing the game.
After getting their allocation of the fictitious money, the individuals or team players embark on making their initial investment decision. Each member does they market research and shares with the group through the discussion forum. Investment information may be collected from business news media, other investment forums, investment websites or investment books. After reviewing the various inputs and investment information, they proceed and make their initial decision.
After placing your funds on your preferred products, you can then follow the performance of this products through the trading platform. Through out the game, your team will continually trade on the investment products in a bid to gain the most profits. The frequency of trading will depend on the investment products you settle on and the general market trends. Your team may also decide to place your funds in multiple products to manage your fictitious investment risk.
At the end of the game, your team will either have more or less money than you started with. To win the game, your team will need to have made more money from your investments than that made by your competitor teams. However, irrespective of whether you win or lose the game, the main aim of the game is to give you the necessary experience to trade in the real market. If you still feel that you are not ready for the real market, you can always play again.
Playing a stock market game gives one the necessary skills to make wise investment decisions on their capital and therefore, it is always advisable to invest your money in a stock market only after you having played the game.
Looking to invest your hard-earned money in the stock market and don’t have any experience in the field? You definitely need to play a stock game! Get the inside scoop now in our social news guide.