Trading Basics
*Please Note: The trading rules will continue to be updated until the competition begins on July 4th, 2025.
To invest in your portfolio, your team will start with $100,000 in virtual currency.
Every trade is conducted on the Investopedia Simulator. Through the use of real-world data and an online stock market simulation, Investopedia Simulator enables students to practice investing and portfolio management concepts without having to risk real money.
Buying and selling stocks and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) from several domestic and foreign exchanges, together with a limited number of U.S. Treasury bonds with different coupon rates and maturity dates, are the main trading activities during the Investment Competition.
Every team has a single Investopedia account. To access the trading platform, each team member will need the same username and password.
Investopedia is open weekdays from 9:30 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. Eastern Standard Time (ET), which is when the U.S. stock market is open. Even when the U.S. stock market is closed, you can still submit trading orders for U.S. stocks. When the U.S. stock market reopens the next day, your trade will be filled at the stock's open price.
All U.S. trades are executed by Investopedia at real-time pricing, which are the stock's current price. The prices you see in your open positions (before a sale or purchase closes) are delayed by 15 to 20 minutes, even though trades are conducted at real-time pricing and the bid and ask prices are also real-time.
Every item that is traded will come from the US stock market, either from NASDAQ or NYSE. At the end of the trading day, these equity orders will be processed. An overseas equities deal that is placed at 4:00 p.m. on Monday will clear by the end of Tuesday. Additionally, when trading in overseas marketplaces, exchange rate computations are carried out automatically. You don't need to put in any additional effort, but it's a good idea to be aware of the possible profits or losses that exchange rates could cause.
It is not necessary to convert your money into another currency. When you buy or sell, it happens automatically.
Trading Outside the US
Considering most participants will be outside the US, consider the time difference between your country and the U.S. stock market. You are twelve hours ahead of ET, for instance, if you are trading in Hong Kong. You can therefore actively place transactions during the many evening hours when the U.S. market is open. Therefore, it is 9:30 p.m. in Hong Kong when the U.S. stock market starts at 9:30 a.m. ET. When you choose to place trades actively, the early evening hours may be an excellent time for your team to gather in person or virtually.
We don't expect you to trade while the U.S. stock market is open, which means you shouldn't stay up late. Keep in mind that the Youth Investors Challenge is not a trading competition, therefore day trading—the practice of purchasing and selling stocks on the same day in order to profit from little price fluctuations—is not required. Once you have identified your ideal portfolio mix through analysis, the bulk of your strategy should be concentrated on a long-term, buy-and-hold approach that won't include a lot of stock purchasing and selling.
Once your portfolio is established, we do expect you to trade, but you should do this strategically and avoid feeling compelled to purchase and sell hurriedly at all hours of the night. In the end, you are not attempting to demonstrate the value of your team's overall strategy or portfolio by gauging its growth over a ten-week trading period.
