Can you learn from a Virtual Stock exchange game?

[Slyjoker87]

So,

I am trying to educate myself about the stock market and decided to try using a virtual stock exchange. You know, the ones that use the real numbers and real time stats.

However, I realize that the VSE is unrealistic in that it doesn't actually affect the stock market and when you sell on the VSE, you are probably always guaranteed to sell while on the real stock exchange it isn't necessarily so.

Is there anything I can learn from the stock exchange games?


what do you guys think?

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[etf]

yes - you will learn ALOT from the mistakes you make. if you screw up enough with fake money, it decreases the chance you will with real dough. don't worry about whether it's realistic enough - i doubt any of us would be able to make "market moving" trades anyway, and if a security is so illiquid that a buy order from you and i would substantially change its price, it's not something we should be investing in in the first place. good luck.

 

[Slyjoker87]

Okay,

So on my Virtual portfolio I have made 200 bucks @ 7$ commission per trade.

Say I made this in real life. First of all, there are rules about day trading that I don't quite understand.

I didn't buy and sell on the same day for these stocks but lets say I wanted to buy two stocks a day, M-F, and sell the previous day's stocks on the next day.

That isn't day trading is it? ( I assume you have to buy and then sell the same stock for it to be day trading)

Also, How do I determine capital gains tax?

 

[AKPsiMD84]

Im bumping this topic up since its a good one.

 

[cyclingmo]

Which program did you use?

 

[HighSpeed]

You can learn from them. There are rules (buy low, sell high; chart analysis, use of alerts, stock monitoring, e.t.c) that you can definitely learn from trading with virtual stocks.

Probably the most important thing you learn from trading with virtual stocks is "discipline". You can not have enough of it and this is because stock trading directly affects our emotions (when we make large profits we are ridiculously happy, and when we have losses we are sad). Of course as the real pros will tell you (Investment Bankers, veteran daytraders and such), just because you are overly joyed because of high profits does not mean you should cash out, and just because you have losses 3 days in a row does not mean you should give up on the stock either.

To put it simply, virtual trading simply teaches you when, what, how, and why to buy/sell a stock.

So a good word would be not to simply focus on whether or not you are guaranteed to buy/sell using VSE program but on those other advantages mentioned above. Besides, no "virtual" program is realistic whether you are talking about the stock market, ecommerce, transportation, e.t.c.

Hope this helps.

HS

 

[The White Coat Investor]

Is there anything I can learn from the stock exchange games?
what do you guys think?

Yes. You can learn not to trade stocks at all. If you don't know how to calculate your capital gains tax, you have no business buying individual stocks.

Repeat after me.

Save, buy, hold. Save, buy, hold. Save, buy, hold. Don't buy anything you wouldn't be comfortable owning if the stock market shut down for 30 years.

People make fun of simple solutions like a target retirement fund composed of low-cost, index mutual funds, but the fact of the matter is that these outperform most individual investors over the long run.