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.
Allow Late Entry - This setting dictates when users are allowed to join a game. Not allowing late entry will prevent new users from joining the game after the game has already started.
Allow Portfolio History Viewing - This setting determines whether users in a game are allowed to view each other’s trade history via the rankings page.
Allow Portfolio Viewing - This setting determines whether users in a game are allowed to view each other’s portfolio via the rankings page.
Allow Portfolio Resetting - This setting determines whether users have the capability to reset their portfolios back to their beginning state.
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.