Stock Market Game

I am very excited to be able to offer you an opportunity to learn about the stock market through the Stock Market Game.   According to the Stock Market Game web page, "Students will have the chance to invest a hypothetical $100,000 in an on-line portfolio. Students will think they are playing a game." However, they will be learning economic and financial concepts they'll use for the rest of their lives.

The website is:  http://www.stockmarketgame.org/

You need to learn the rules of the game, because knowing the rules will answer a lot of the questions you may have regarding the game.  I will also be giving you a quiz on the rules after you have been playing for two weeks.  Study the rules especially what I have highlighted (hint hint).  Take the quiz that is online as often.  You can take it as many times as you want.  It will prepare you for the quiz that will count towards a grade. 

1. Each team begins the simulation with $100,000 in cash and may borrow additional funds. How much you may borrow is dependent upon the equity in your account. Interest is charged weekly on negative cash balances at an annual rate of 7.00%, and credited weekly on positive cash balances at an annual rate of 2.00%. Interest is calculated daily, then summed for the week (Monday through Sunday) and posted on the following Tuesday. If the Monday before the Tuesday posting is a holiday, then posting will be Wednesday and interest will be for Monday through Monday (8 days) and the next week's posting will be for six days (Tuesday through Sunday). The daily rate is based upon a 365 day year. Daily Interest = Cash * Appropriate Interest Rate (as a decimal) / 365. Bond coupon payments will be posted when due.

2. You may trade only stocks and mutual funds listed on the Nasdaq Stock Market and the New York Stock Exchange that have traded within the last 7 days. Some competitive regions may also trade a pre-determined group of Municipal, Corporate, and Treasury bonds.

3. End of Day Game transactions are priced at market daily closing prices. These prices can be found in the next day's newspaper or by using the price quote facilities of SMG. Real Time Game transactions are priced at the market price at the time of entry. Bond prices are available only on the SMG website.

All Mutual Fund transactions are treated as End of Day transactions and priced at that day's closing price. All bond transactions are treated as Real Time transactions. This applies to both End of Day and Real Time games.

Transactions entered with a limit price will not be held past the initial attempt to price the transaction. This applies to End of Day or Real Time Games.

4. All buy orders must be a minimum of 100 shares. Sell orders for less than 100 shares will be permitted. Open ended mutual funds can not be short sold. Held short sell positions are marked to the market daily and the resulting gain or loss is added or subtracted from cash. No mark to market trasactions are posted in transaction history.

5. SMG does not permit buying stocks or mutual funds that trade below $5 per share the day before and the day of execution. Such orders will be rejected. Sell transactions for existing long positions where transactions are executed at closing or real time prices will be accepted, even if the price is less than $5.00 per share. (There are a number of reasons for this rule. Low priced stocks, known as penny stocks, are very risky and volatile investments. Accordingly, brokers will not permit their customers to trade such securities on margin, just as SMG does not. Also, penny stocks tend to have very shallow markets and their prices move sharply with large orders, unlike SMG where transactions are executed at closing or real time prices regardless of order size).

6. Trades can only be processed in whole and will be rejected if sufficient buying power does not exist to execute the entire order.

7. A 2% broker's fee is charged for all transactions. For example, if you buy 100 shares of a stock at $10 per share, you must pay the 2% of $1000 or $20. On Sell or Shortsell transactions an SEC fee of $5.60 per million gross rounded to the nearest penny is also charged.

8. The Game is run Monday through Friday. Teams may trade on any day the participating stock markets are open. Orders may be entered 7 days a week during hours the system is available.

9. Stock trades entered after close of market (4:00 PM ET) will be priced at next day's closing price for the End of Day Game and at opening price for the Real Time Game. Bonds will be given last price displayed in the system and Mutual funds will be priced at next day's closing price.

10. Teams do not have to liquidate their portfolios at the end of The Game. Winners will be determined on the basis of either equity or the % return above/below S&P 500 Growth. (Some states may use additional criteria to determine winners).

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Short sell/short cover rules

11. All short sell orders must be for a minimum of 100 shares. Short cover orders for less than 100 shares will be permitted. Open ended mutual funds can not be short sold.

12. SMG does not permit short sells on stocks or mutual funds that trade below $5.00 per share. Such orders will be rejected. Short cover transactions for existing short positions will be accepted, even if the price is less than $5.00 per share. (See Rule #5 for an explanation).

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Portfolios

13. A record of a team's portfolio and transactions will be available daily. A team will not receive a portfolio nor be listed in regional rankings until its initial transaction is entered successfully. A student can only be assigned to ONE portfolio per game period.

14. No back posting of trades will be done for trades of securities not contained within the SMG Security Table. Once the missing security has been added to the Security Table the security can then be traded. The same rule applies to trades rejected if they are incorrectly pricing below $5. Once the pricing has been corrected the security can be traded. Only Bonds listed in the SMG can be traded. No post dating of trades due to the system being unavailable.

15. Stock and cash dividends and stock splits are automatically computed into portfolios. Every effort is made to simulate as closely to real life as possible a variety of other corporate actions (mergers, acquisitions, spinoffs, etc.), which may include the standard three-day settlement period. In this case, it may be necessary to suspend trading of a given security until the action can be completed. Canadian stocks trading on US exchanges cannot be traded between a split's record date and its payout date. It is the responsibility of teams to check their portfolios for accuracy and notify their Coordinator by email of any problems that are encountered.

16. Participants of the end of day pricing game may delete pending transactions prior to market close except bonds which are processed as real time orders.

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Additional rules

17. Any violation of the rules of the SMG may result in the invalidation of a transaction. Repeated violation of the rules may result in the disqualification of a team.

18. Additional rules have been developed in some states and, if applicable, have been included in your Coordinator's Information Page. It is the responsibility of your team to learn and abide by all rules.

19. You must maintain a total equity position that is greater than or equal to 30% of the current value of your current holdings. If you don't you will receive a margin call.

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