Our goal is to represent real-life trading as closely as possible. However
because we aren't actually involved in the market (and thus aren't influencing
it), there are some restrictions that don't exist in a real-life trading
account.
Daily Volume Rule - Trades cannot exceed a certain percentage
of volume for the day. The default value is 10% and this applies to both
stocks and options. This prevents a thinly-traded stock from being traded in
the simulator when it can't be traded in the actual markets.
Quick Sell Rule - You cannot sell a security within a certain
time period to reflect the fact that we are working with delayed data. The
default value is 15 minutes. This is our way of ensuring that users don't
"cheat" by trading in and out of a stock using real-time data.
Minimum Price Rule - Only securities over $1 are allowed to be
traded long, and only securities over $5 are allowed to be traded short. Penny
stocks are more prone to manipulation from stock promoters and can have erratic
trading patterns. It's for this reason that we don't allow them in our default
competition. Margin requirements in most countries are more strenuous when
shorting stocks below $5. We avoid this complication by not allowing stocks
under $5 to be shorted at all.
Diversification Rule - The maximum amount of one stock that
you can buy is equal to 50% of your starting cash. Any particular options
contract is limited to 10% of your starting cash. For example, if you start
with $100,000, you can only purchase up to $50,000 in any single stock. We do
this to make the game more realistic. Though some might argue that they want to
put their entire portfolio in one security this is more like gambling than
investing.
Market Delay - Because we use a 20 minute delayed datafeed, it
is necessary to hold market orders for a certain time before being filled. We
strongly recommend that this be set to 20. If it is not, there is a high
probability that some orders may get stale quotes.
Option Daily Volume - Trades cannot exceed a certain percentage
of volume for the day. The default value is 10% for options however this
can be edited in custom competitions. This prevents a thinly-traded option
from being traded in the simulator when it can't be traded in the actual
markets.
Minimum Price Short - Only securities over $5 are allowed to
be traded short. Penny stocks are more prone to manipulation from stock
promoters and can have erratic trading patterns. It's for this reason that we
don't allow them in our default competition. Margin requirements in most
countries are more strenuous when shorting stocks below $5. We avoid this
complication by not allowing stocks under $5 to be shorted at all.
Minimum Stock for Margin -The minimum dollar amount that allows a
security to be marginable
Margin Interest - The value represents the interest rate your
account will be charged if you use margin to purchase securities.
Cash Interest - This value represents the interest rate the
cash balance in your account will earn. Interest is earned on the daily
cash balance however it is paid to your account on a monthly basis.
You can view interest payments in the Trade History section of your account.
Commission Market - The commission charged for
each market transaction. The default commission setting is $19.99.
Commission Limit - The commission charged for each limit
transactions. The default commission setting is $29.95.
Commission Option - The base commission for options.
Option trade commissions consist of this value plus the amount per contract
times the number of contracts. The default commission setting is $19.99.
Commission Per Contract - The per contract commission for
options. Option trade commissions consist of the base amount plus this
amount times the number of contracts. The default commission setting is
$1.75 per contract.
Please contact us if you have come across any other
error messages that you don't understand.
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