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Short Put What is a short put? Recall that a put option is a contract where the buyer has the right (not the obligation) to exercise a sell transaction at a specific strike price before an expiration date. A short put is a term used when you sell a put option for an underlying asset. Read More…

Short Put Recall that a put option is a contract where the buyer has the right (not the obligation) to exercise a sell transaction at a specific strike price before an expiration date. A short put is a term used when you sell a put option for an underlying asset. A trader that has a Read More…

Recall that a call option is a contract where the buyer has the right (not the obligation) to exercise a buy transaction at a specific strike price at expiration date. A short call is a term used when you sell a call option for an underlying asset. A trader that has a short call option Read More…

A long call is a term used when you own a call option for an underlying asset. A call option is a contract where the buyer has the right (not the obligation) to exercise a buy transaction at a specific strike price at or before an expiration date. In the world of trading, owing a Read More…

Short Stock What is a short stock? A short stock is an expression used when you sold shares of a company that you did not own beforehand. Let’s say you expect a stock’s price to drop. Shorting a stock would involve a strategy where you borrow shares from another party (usually a broker) and sell Read More…

Long Stock What is a long stock? A long stock is an expression used when you own shares of a company. It represents a claim on the company’s assets and earnings. As you increase your holdings of a stock, your ownership stake in the company increases. Words such as “shares”, “equity” and “stock” all mean Read More…

Stock and bond prices move up and down every day, sometimes by very large amounts. If you want to start investing, the first thing to understand is why these price movements happen, and how to plan for them. Stock Price Movements If you look at the stock for any public company you will often see Read More…

See the full listing of available corporate and treasury bonds available on our platform!

On your Instructor Administration page, you can view all of your student information. This tutorial walks through what each of these pages have, in detail. Student Accounts This is the first tab on your report, with some basic information on your students: This report will show you all of your student usernames and passwords, along Read More…

Simulator Spot Trading Spots are very easy to trade (if your contest allows it). Simply choose the action like you would with a stock, select the quantity and the spot you wish to trade from the dropdown from the [link name=”spots” dest=”/trading/spots”]Spots trading page[/link]. Trading Details There are a few things to note with spot Read More…

Trading Bonds If they are allowed in your contest, you can use the [link name=”bonds” dest=”/trading/bonds”]Bonds Trading Page[/link]. Simply select the bond you want to buy or sell, how much you want to buy, and trade! Notes for trading bonds: All bonds, corporate and treasury, that we support are in one master list. We only Read More…

Trading Options If options trading is allowed in your contest, you can use the [link name=”option” dest=”/trading/options”]Options trading page[/link]. Trading options on your simulator is easy but there a few differences between the real world and a simulator. To trade options start by going to the Make a trade => trade options tab. Simple or Read More…

Trading Future Options acts like trading a normal option, but replacing the underlying stock with an underlying future. If your class or contest allows it, you can trade them from the [link url=”/trading/futureoptions” desc=”taradre”]Future Options Trading Page[/link]. Trading Pit Parts of the trading pit: Action – Only “Buy” and “Sell” is available for future options Read More…

Future Options are exactly what their name implies – an option on a futures contract. Futures and Options – Related Derivatives Futures and options are both derivatives – meaning a security whose value solely depends on the value of the underlying asset. A future derives its value from the commodities or currencies which it represents Read More…

If your contest allows trading futures, you can find them on the [link name=”future” dest=”/trading/futures”]Futures trading page[/link]. Action: Here you can select: Buy, sell, short, cover just as you would for stocks. Quantity: Enter the quantity desired of options contracts. Remember even with 1 futures contract you can have huge exposure depending on the contract Read More…

Symbol Month Margin Multiplier Description Exchange Indices Z. HMUZ 5500 10 Dow Jones CBOT ES HMUZ 3850 50 e-Mini S&P 500 (Globex) CME ND HMUZ 12100 100 Nasdaq 100 CME NIY HMUZ 3400 5 NIKKEI 225/Yen CME NQ HMUZ 2420 20 e-Mini Nasdaq 100(Globex) CME TR HMUZ 5280 100 Russell 2000 Mini Index ICE SP Read More…

Grains Contract Sep Oct Nov Dec Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Wheat 08/31 11/30 02/28 04/28 06/30 Corn 08/31 11/30 02/28 04/28 06/30 Soybeans 08/31 10/31 12/30 02/28 04/28 06/30 07/31 Soybean Meal 08/31 09/30 11/30 12/30 02/28 04/28 06/30 06/29 Soybean Oil 08/31 09/30 11/30 12/30 02/28 04/28 06/30 07/31 Oats Read More…

There is an infinite number of strategies that can be used with the aid of options that cannot be done with simply owning or shorting the stock. These strategies allow you select any number of pros and cons depending on your strategy. For example, if you think the price of the stock is not likely Read More…

A straddle is an investment strategy that involves the purchase or sale of an option allowing the investor to profit regardless of the direction of movement of the underlying asset, usually a stock. There are two straddle strategies, a long straddle and a short straddle. How to create a Long Straddle position A long straddle Read More…

When trading mutual funds on this system, there are a few differences to keep in mind compared to trading stocks. Trading Tip 1: Quantity = Dollars! Unlike stocks, where you specify the number of shares you want to purchase, with Mutual Funds you specify how many dollar’s worth a mutual fund you want to buy. Read More…

Options Spreads are option trading strategies which make use of combinations of buying and selling call and put options of the same or varying strike prices and expiration dates to achieve specific objectives (hedging, arbitrage, etc.). Option spreads are complex trades, but you can place two “legs” simultaneously using this trading platform. Trading Option Spreads To Read More…

To create your contest, log in as an administrator (if you’re seeing this page, you probably already have), and find your Administrator menu at the top left of the page: Video Tutorial This video tutorial walks through each challenge rule, it is about 7 minutes long. Creation Form This is a description of everything you’ll Read More…

Assignments are a great way to manage your class’s activities around the simulation and this learn center, giving you the ability to track your student’s progress in trading, reading articles, and using our calculators. This will be a quick overview of what Assignments are, and how you can best make use of them in your Read More…

3 Ways To Communicate Most changes to the site have a one-week turnaround period for integration, but we do have 3 quick that will improve the way you communicate with your users. These methods always be updated on any information your site would like to deliver – most clients usually use one or two methods, but Read More…

To create your contest, log in (if you’re seeing this page, you probably already have), and find your Contest Menu at the left of the page. Creation Form This is a description of everything you’ll see on that page, and how it impacts your contest: Trading Session Name: This is the name of your class, Read More…

This guide will illustrate the different reporting tools instructors have at their disposal. The Reports page can be accessed under the Administration menu at the top of the page: At the bottom of all Reports pages, there is a button to connect directly with our support team for live support. Video Tutorial This video tutorial will Read More…

Investing101 Final Exam

6-11 Chapter 6 Exam Below is a basic quote for US Steel (Ticker symbol: X) from July 2021, along with the financial statements from the years ending in December 2020 and December 2019 (so you have two years of data to compare). Many of the questions in this exam will reference these financial statements.

Net Worth Calculator! Knowing your net worth is the first step towards growing it! This tool will help you organize your assets in one place, and even help project how they will grow in the future. If you have used our Home Budget Calculator to help see where you can improve your savings, the next Read More…

[link name=”validlink” dest=”/account/validatecode?code=4000021″]If this was part of an assignment, Click Here to confirm you’ve read it[/link]

Dollar Cost Averaging is a great way to get an average price for a stock. Combine that with a Dividend Reinvestment Plan (DRIP) you are on your way to build steady wealth. Please watch the video below to learn how to use these concepts to your advantage. [link name=”validlink” dest=”/account/validatecode?code=4000020″]If this was part of Read More…

Please watch the two videos below before beginning the assignments posted below. [link name=”validlink” dest=”/account/validatecode?code=4000019″]If this was part of an assignment, Click Here to confirm you’ve read it[/link]

A market is a place of exchange that allows buyers and sellers of a specific good or service to interact in order to facilitate an exchange. The price that individuals pay during the transaction may be determined by a number of factors that we will discuss later. Although there are many types of markets Read More…

In the first chapter we learned about what markets were, and specifically talked about the stock market. You might still be wondering though what is stock? As we talked about in the Apple example, stock is a type of security that signifies ownership in a corporation and represents a claim on part of the Read More…

This table of data is kind of table that you will see when you type a stock or stock symbol into the Yahoo! Finance search tab. The top line shows us that we are looking at information regarding Annaly Capital Management, Inc. Stocks are denoted by symbols that are unique to that stock. For example, Read More…

What makes stock prices go up and down? Most people would tell you that supply and demand makes stock prices go up and down, and most people would be wrong. Price discovery is the actual reason tha makes stocks go up and down and is a difficult concept to understand that is too often comapred Read More…

Liquidity can be hard to explain with respect to stocks, but an easy way to start thinking about liquidity is by picturing a water bottle with one of two things in it, water or concrete. If you took a water bottle with concrete in it, twisted off the cap and flipped it upside down, nothing Read More…

There are three phases of the market that you need to know to understand how markets move and work. The three phases of the market are congestion, breakout, then blow off. The first phase of the market is congestion. The market is in congestion more than 65% of the time. Congestion can be hard to Read More…

Risk vs. Reward is one of the most important concepts when it comes to our trading. It is important to realize that when we are trading, we are not gambling. Our trading revolves around calculated risks that will make us successful in the long run. It is a beautiful thing that when we trade, we Read More…

This section builds directly off of the last one because it reiterates the fact that we are not gambling when we are trading. Your personal opinion and emotion must be left at the door. The only thing you should be looking at is the levels on your chart. There is nothing more dangerous than a Read More…

We have talked a little bit about trading stocks. You might be wondering though, “How do I know which stocks to trade?” We also have a set of rules in place for finding the right stocks for you to trade. The key to technical trading is to find the levels you want to trade. It Read More…

We’ll pick up right where we left off last section. Your watch list comes directly from the stocks that you screen for. We want our watch list to consist of 20 stocks from the screening section. It may seem like a hard task to pick only 20 stocks from that big of a list, but Read More…

There are many different types of orders you can place in the stock market, and it is important to know the difference between all of them. Let’s start with the two most basic types of orders that we should be aware of. A market order is an order to buy or sell immediately at the Read More…

Please watch the videos below showing you how to place a buy order with a 3% stop. A buy order is also called a long position because we always want to place our orders off of the levels we create when making our watch lists. [link name=”validlink” dest=”/account/validatecode?code=4000012″]If this was part of an assignment, Read More…

Once your stock has been filled you always want to protect your downside risk. The recommendation for trading stock is to place a stop order 3% lower than what you paid for the stock. For example, if you bought a stock for $37.00 per share you would want to put your stop in by taking Read More…

We are now onto the last step of learning how to trade. This step is the most exciting one as we actually get to use charts and make trades off of them. Our style of trading revolves around identifying patterns within charts. We have two main patterns that we use, they are called double tops Read More…

Options are one of the most misunderstood concepts in trading. Many people do not trade options because they have false beliefs that options are too risky. The truth is that they just don’t know how options really work. Options are actually the most beneficial for young traders because they don’t require nearly as much capital Read More…

Volatility is a critical concept to understand when trading options. The volatility in the market place can give us a lot of information regarding how we should be trading options. So many people trade options without evaluating the true market value of the options they are trading. This is a peculiar phenomenon because these people Read More…

We have briefly gone over what a call option is, but let’s make it a little clearer. When you buy a call option, you are betting that a stock will go up. Here are three important components that affect the price of an option. Strike Price= the price at which you are allowed to buy Read More…

This chapter will basically be a mirror image to the last one. We have briefly gone over what a put option is, but let’s make it little clearer. When you buy a put option, you are betting that a stock will go down. Let’s move right to option chain this time, but now we are Read More…

10-06 Summary Congratulations! You made it through the basic investing course unscathed, armed, and ready to begin a long, successful investment career. You have enough information to begin with some confidence. Remember, you can test your personal investment strategy using the real world simulation. You’ll get all the excitement and results you’d achieve in the Read More…

10-05 Develop an Investing Strategy That Feels Right for You Throughout this course, we talked a lot about setting goals for yourself, the importance of diversification, and some concepts like “Swing Trading” and “Buy and Hold”. From this point forward, you need to build your own investing strategy – an approach to investing that is Read More…

10-04 Practice, Practice, Practice Every skill you will ever acquire requires a lot of practice, and investing is no different. You should have started building your practice portfolio by now as part of this course – if you have not, you have been SERIOUSLY missing out. Even after this course, there are free practice portfolios Read More…

10-03 Staying Informed Even if you start out as a “buy and hold” investor, staying informed at all times is a critical component to your investment career. Should you be tempted to walk the ever-exciting and dangerous tightrope of day trading, your stream of current information is even more important. Here are some suggestions that Read More…

10-02 Ten Mistakes to Avoid 1. Over-diversification. Sure, every expert with a pencil, computer, or microphone keeps telling you to diversify your portfolio. They are right, but they often neglect to tell you the rest. For example, assume you only have $200 to invest. You buy 40 different stocks at $5 each. Guess what? Now Read More…

10-01 Ten Keys to Remember Here are ten important things to remember as you take the next step in your investing journey. These are real world keys that you should embed into your conscious brain to help you become a consistently smart or profitable investor. 1. Understand and control the fees and costs of your Read More…

9-10 Resources Summary Options are exciting investment “vehicles,” but to be used profitably, you need to understand what they mean and what they can or cannot do for you. You have now scratched the surface of the option world. You’ve now reached a level that gives you some ammunition and skills to play the basic Read More…

Options are an important instrument for many traders, and to understand options you need to understand options tables and learn how to read option tables! Depending on the software or website you use, the actual information may vary, but all tables have these basic sets of information: Calls Puts Strike Vol Expiry Last Chg Bid Read More…

9-09 Put Versus Call Interest Put and call interest does not involve the banking definition of interest, but the market excitement – or lack thereof – regarding puts or calls for a security. Before you start thinking we’ve all lost our analytical minds, try to understand that market prices for stocks and put/ The right, Read More…

9-08 Option Pricing – Black-Scholes Model Any discussion of options and option prices would be incomplete without a mention of the The most generally accepted option pricing model. Black-Scholes option pricing model. Academics Fischer Black and Myron Scholes, in a paper they authored in 1973, stated their theory that an option was implicit to the Read More…

9-07 Implied Volatility What is implied volatility? It is the forecast of current stock price movements with the theoretical value of the market price in the future. It is determined by time, expected movements, and supply and demand. In general, implied volatility (IV) increases in bearish markets and decreases in Bullish markets. Implied volatility Read More…

9-06 Volatility Volatility is a concept that involves all types of securities. For good reasons, high volatility is most often viewed as a negative in the investment world since rapid movements in market prices inherently involve both wins and losses. In investment language, volatility implies two scary conditions for you uncertainty and risk. If you Read More…

9-05 Writing Covered/Naked Calls We noted earlier that 35% of option buyers lose money and that 65% of option sellers make money. Option trading comes down to the turtle and the hare story. Option buyers are the rabbits that are generally looking for a quick move in stock prices, and the option sellers/writers are the Read More…

9-04 Making Your First Option Trade Now that you have a high level understanding of what options are, let’s look at option trading in a little more detail. When you get a quote on a stock you can also call up its option chain: First of all, you must realize that not all stocks have Read More…

9-03 Put Options Whereas a call option gives the holder the right to buy the stock at a certain price, a put option gives the holder the right to sell the stock at a certain price. A trader that buys a The right, but not the obligation, to sell a stock at a certain price Read More…

9-02 Call Options Now you know that an option is a contract between two entities, one who buys the contract and one who agrees to sell it at a specified price. What is the transaction called when you buy an option contract to go long? You might have guessed it from the name of this Read More…

9-01 What Are Options? Have you ever wanted to buy an expensive stock like Netflix or PayPal but you can’t afford to buy 100 shares? Options give you the right to participate and have exposure in these expensive stocks, but you are not required to use that much personal capital. Generally speaking, options are used Read More…

8-11 Resources This lesson focused on hot topics in the investment world. Obviously, by the nature of discussing “hot” topics, conditions can change quickly, sometimes making hot topics cold and others newly hot. However, the issues in this lesson have been “hot” for some time and should continue to be important for the foreseeable future. Read More…

8-08 Short Squeze In 2021, a group of investors on Reddit made investing history by coordinating together to cause a mania around GameStop (GME) stock. These investors were not necessarily trying to artificially “pump up” the stock’s price, but instead believed that the price was artificially being kept down by big investing firms, and by Read More…

8-07 Insider Transactions Insider transactions and trading has become a sensitive topic in recent years. Most thoughts tend to be negative (images of Martha Stewart in prison may spring to mind), giving the impression that all insider transactions are illegal or unethical. Not true. Technically, insider transactions involve an employee of a company trading his Read More…

8-06 Growth at a Reasonable Price (GARP) During the height of the dot.com explosion, a popular strategy – growth at any price – became the rallying cry for many investors. After the bubble burst, a more conservative strategy known as growth at a reasonable price, or GARP, became and remains a popular investing action plan. Read More…

8-05 Buy and Hold “Buy and Hold” is the polar opposite strategy from day trading. Buy and Hold investors spend all of their time researching the fundamental strengths of a company, making sure it is the best at what it does and has the resources to continue to be. When they buy a stock they Read More…

8-04 Penny Stocks Penny stocks are often popular with the newer and smaller investors. These investments are classically defined as any stock that sells for less than $5.00, traded outside the major exchanges, and often traded on the OTCBB (Over-the-Counter Stocks that trade on the NASD with tickers that end in an “.OB”, but have Read More…

8-03 Swing Trading “Day Trading” we talked about in the last lesson is a full-time job, and you have to pay extremely close attention to make money. Most investors interested in profitable short-term trading use “Swing Trading” instead, which is based on price movements over a day, week, or month. Done on an intra-day basis, Read More…

8-02 Day Trading The buying and selling of investments (stocks, futures, stock options, commodities, currencies, etc.) within the same trading day, so that all positions are closed before the end of each day, is called The buying and selling investments (stocks, futures, stock options, commodities, currencies, etc.) within the same trading day, so that all Read More…

8-01 Manias, Bubbles, and Crashes All the way back in chapter 2, we talked about How The Stock Market Works, and the concept of Bull Markets and Bear Markets. Both concepts relied heavily on “Supply and Demand” – new investors increasing demand causing prices to go up, and investors selling off their shares and leaving Read More…

7-15 Resources Alright, everyone, take a deep breath and relax. You’ve just been assaulted with a lot of information. Don’t panic. As you view real-world examples of these charts, you’ll become more familiar and comfortable with their interpretations. This and other sites will give you all the additional information you need to continue your current journey Read More…

7-14 Bollinger Bands In the 1980s, John Bollinger developed a new technical analysis tool to measure the highs and lows of a security price relative to previous trade data. These “trading bands” help investors track and analyze the “bandwidth” of stock prices over a period. The object of Bollinger Bands is to identify a “relative” Read More…

7-13 Support and Resistance Support in a stock chart forms at an area where the stock’s price seems to not want to move lower. This is due to the presence of buyers at this lower target price. Support and Resistance in a stock chart forms at an area where the stock’s price seems to not Read More…

7-12 Relative Strength Index (RSI) RSI is the acronym for “Relative Strength Index.” The RSI was created in 1978 by J. Welles Wilder to compare the strength and magnitude of a stock’s gains and losses in recent time periods. The simple formula converts this winning and losing data into a number ranging from 0 to Read More…

7-11 Moving Averages The Moving Average is a line on a chart that smooths out the recent price history by calculating the average price over 30 or 60 days (or any number of days). Moving averages are among the most popular, and easy to use and understand trading “tools” available to you. Also, moving averages Read More…

7-10 Fibonacci Ratios Often called the most accomplished mathematician of the Middle Ages, Leonardo Fibonacci is best known for his “numbers”. It is a sequence starting with 0 and 1, after which every third number is the sum of the previous two numbers. A Fibonacci “sequence” is 0,1,1,2,3,5,8, etc. The Fibonacci “ratios” are 23.6%, 38.2%, Read More…

7-09 MACD This is the acronym for “The Moving Average is a line on a chart that smooths out the recent price history by calculating the average price over 30 or 60 days (or any number of days). moving average convergence/divergence.” Got it? OK, here’s the simple explanation. This graph shows the difference between a Read More…

7-08 Candlesticks Candlesticks are a type of stock chart developed and originated in 17th century Japan. It can be traced back to the world’s first rice futures exchange in the 1600s. In the mid-1700s, a Japanese man named Munehisa Honma developed a way to track the emotions of traders by looking at patterns of supply Read More…

7-07 Wedges and Flags A Wedge in the financial universe describes a triangular shape formed by the intersection of two trendlines. They come together to form an apex. The Wedge doesn’t need to be upward facing, it can also be an inverted triangle. The “falling” Wedge is often called a Flag because it looks like Read More…

7-06 Trendlines You’re probably aware that trendlines are important for your research on potential purchases or sales of securities. Base numbers are equally important to understand the true meaning of any trends you identify. Depending on the type of chart you’re viewing, you’ll want to establish a solid, unbroken trendline that graphically displays the direction Read More…

7-05 Double Bottom A Double Bottom chart will look like a “W.” It indicates that the stock hit a bottom market price, had a brief uptick, and then decreased again to turn a “V” shape into a “W.” The two reverse peaks should be around the same floor price and the time period should be Read More…

7-04 Breakouts A breakout occurs when market prices move through and continue through former highs or lows that had formed ceilings or floors in the past. Commonly called levels of “Support in a stock chart forms at an area where the stock’s price seems to not want to move lower. This is due to the Read More…

7-03 Head and Shoulders Don’t you love the terminology that pictorially associates these charts with their graphic representations? The Head and Shoulders is an extremely popular pattern among investors because it’s one of the most reliable of all chart formations. It also appears to be an easy one to spot. Novice investors often make the Read More…

7-02 Cup with Handle The Cup with a Handle pattern is one of the best-known stock chart patterns. The Cup pattern follows the outline of an inverted semi-circle (U-shape), indicating a price fall, a bottoming out, and a price rise. Afterwards, there tends to be a rather unstable period marked by a sell-off generated by Read More…