So you’re new to the stock market and you don’t know a whole lot about what to invest in. It’s all good! Choosing the right stocks is never easy. In fact, even professional stock traders don’t end up beating the market a good portion of the time. And if those guys can’t consistently build portfolios that perform well, it’s probably not the best idea for someone with limited knowledge of the stock market to start throwing their money at stocks willy-nilly.
But how can you learn about what stocks are performing well without the risk of losing money? Well, for one, you can follow financial publications like Bloomberg or The Wall Street Journal and read the headlines to see which stocks are booming and which ones are a bust. However, if you want to take it a step further and actually get the experience of trading stocks without putting money on the line, you need to check out HowTheMarketWorks.
What Is HowTheMarketWorks?
HowTheMarketWorks is probably the best resource out there for learning about stock trading. And the best part is that you don’t need a single cent to get involved. Basically, it’s a website that tracks real-world stock prices, allows you to pick and trade real stocks and build a portfolio, and track the performance of your portfolio over time. It’s kind of like stock trading with Monopoly money.
When you sign up (which is completely free), you’re given $100,000 of fake money to put into the market. You can choose from any security that’s traded on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), including stocks, ETFs, mutual funds, and bonds. Once you’ve invested your fake money, you can make subsequent trades and track the performance of your portfolio. That way, you can basically troubleshoot your stock trading strategies without the consequence of losing real money.
Contests
Whether you’re a teacher who’s trying to teach a class of students about the stock market or just someone trying to compete with their friends, one of the best features of HowTheMarketWorks is the contests. You can set up contests to see whose portfolio performs the best over a set period of time. Nothing motivates like a little friendly competition!
In addition to creating contests with your friends, family, or classmates, HowTheMarketWorks also has competitions that anyone can enter in which you can win cash prizes. So, if your portfolio of fake investments performs well enough, you might actually score some cash that you can make real investments with.
Other Resources
HowTheMarketWorks has a wealth of other resources to help you learn about how to trade, how to pick stocks, and the market in general. If you’re new to the world of stock trading, you can start with their resources for beginners, which basically just outline the differences between types of securities. Then, once you master those, you can move on to more advanced topics like forex and margin trading.
If you’re a teacher looking to use HowTheMarketWorks as a teaching tool, the site even provides you with full curriculums that you can use. They even host webinars in which they’ll tell you how to use the website to teach with maximum effectiveness.
And, of course, stock trading isn’t the only aspect of money management. Luckily, HowTheMarketWorks has resources that will teach you all about personal finance as well. So, once you’ve finished soaking up all of the personal finance knowledge from our Ideal Money YouTube videos and blog posts, you can head over to HowTheMarketWorks to keep boosting your financial literacy.
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