Due to the nature of our data feed, market orders entered before the open in NYSE or AMEX stocks sometimes execute at incorrect prices. Our policy is to:
- Make an adjustment for each trader the first time the erroneous fill occurs. Any additional execution problems associated with a fill at the open will not be adjusted.
- Only make adjustments for NYSE or AMEX stocks (stocks with symbols 3 letters long or less) on trades at the market open (which for NYSE stocks could be as late as 9:45 to 10:00 on some days.)
- Inform the trader how to prevent this in the future.
To avoid an erroneous fill, use limit orders at the open in NYSE/AMEX stocks. If you want to buy a stock that closed at 40 the day before, you can enter
a limit order to buy at 41. If the stock opens below 41, your order will execute wherever the stock opens. In other words, the limit price is the worst
possible price you can get, and you'll generally get the same price you would have with a market order without the possibility of an execution 4 points out
of the money.
- Open your portfolio by clicking Portfolios -> Practice in the main navigation menu
- Click any "Place Trade Order" link on the page OR click the "Trade" icon in the upper-right part of the screen
- Enter the details for your order, such as "GOOG" for Symbol and "10" for the Quantity
- Click "Preview Order"
- Click "Submit Order"
Percent Return is not the only factor used when scoring and ranking traders. We also calculate a measure of your portfolio's volatility,
called "RiskFactor" as a method of estimating how safe it would be to invest real money in your trading skills. A high volatility
can negatively impact your score. For more details on how this is calculated, read the Statistics help document.
No. According to our Terms of Use, you may only register one account. Failure to follow this rule may result in disqualification and deactivation of all accounts.
Please see the Prize Payments page and the Payment FAQs page.
What are these order size warnings I'm getting when placing orders?
Because our trades are not placed on the real market, we need a way to limit the volume of shares you can trade to emulate real market behavior.
A MaxOrderSize value is calculated based on the 10-Day Average Volume for the stock you are ordering in such a way that the quantity you are purchasing will be within realistic limits.
What do "short" and "cover" mean?
See Short Selling in the Glossary.
What happens at the end of a competition?
There are several things that occur at the end of a competition that you should be aware of:
- Interest is charged for margin accounts. If you have exceeded the allotted starting cash and used your margin account (cash will show as a negative value), you will pay interest on this.
- Credit is applied for the current cash amount. If you have a positive cash balance, you will receive interest credit for it.
- All positions are liquidated to cash. Commission is charged on these transactions.
- Score is calculated using Percent Return and Risk Factor.
- All traders in the competition are ranked by score.
- For rated competitions, ratings are updated to reflect the trader's performance in the competition. Only traders that placed at least one order (whether it executed or not) will be rated.
- All statistics on the website are updated to show the results.
