How to Play Virtual Stock Exchange

Setting up an account to trade on a virtual stock exchange is relatively easy and involves no risk.

Paper trading is the act of buying and selling stocks on a virtual stock exchange. Money is neither lost nor gained when doing paper trading. The virtual stock exchange exchanges securities based on the recent price of the stock. Virtual securities are not exchanged between traders on virtual stock exchanges. Trading the virtual stock exchange is a way to evaluate if a trading strategy will be profitable.

Difficulty:

Easy

Instructions

1. Choose a virtual stock exchange on which you would like to trade. Dozens of free paper trading services are available and may be found online by typing "virtual stock exchange" in an Internet search engine. Wallstreetsurvivor.com and Thinkorswim.com are among recognized virtual stock exchanges.

2. Create an account on the virtual stock exchange. Provide the required information to create an account such. You will be asked to provide your name, address and age. Click "Submit" and your log-in information should be sent via email. Note: some sites require you click an "account activation" link in the email.

3. Choose some securities that you would like to trade. There are hundreds of free Websites, such as Finance.yahoo.com and Google.com/finance, that offer free financial information about publicly traded companies. Read your desired company's reports to evaluate its intrinsic financial worth. In addition, inspect the company's stock charts. Look for upward price movement and price barriers to determine whether to buy the company. Price barriers are historical prices the stock has been unable to exceed. Once a stock "breaks" the price barrier, its value often continues to rise.

4. Type in the address of the Website you used to create a paper trading account. Type your log-in information and hit enter. Select "Trade" and choose a security in which you would like to invest. Enter the name of the security under "symbol" and the number of shares you wish to buy. Hit "Submit" and the shares will appear in your account.

References

• Investopedia: Paper Trade

Resources

• Wall Street Survivor: Homepage
• Think Or Swim: Paper Money