Stock Market Challenge is an online simulation trading game where you create and manage your own portfolio and compete with other players in a risk-free environment. Whether you're new to the stock markets or an experienced investor, this is a powerful tool for building skill, evaluating and tuning your strategy, and gaining important investing experience. Stock Market Challenge is free and easy to use. Simply buy stocks to build your initial portfolio. Continue to track the market and keep an shuffle your portfolio to grab opportunities provided so as to maximize your gains.

Every challenger is assigned Rs 10,00,000 play money in the beginning. The objective is to maximize this amount by intelligently and smartly investing in the Stock Market. Each player is pit against each other and his/her performance determines how the person is doing via-a-vis others. There are multiple time periods for the contest. These are ‘Annual’ (STD), Quarterly, Monthly, Weekly and Daily. For each of these periods the challengers performances are calculated and ranked vis a vis others. Thus, you have a rank for each of the period. Trade, learn and compete with the best!

This Stock Market Challenge is almost as real as it happens on Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE). The practical issues faced when a stock hits a circuit or the illiquidity of a stock etc are all captured and simulated so as to ensure a realistic experience of the markets. The Corporate Benefits as in Dividend, Bonus, Split, Mergers, De-Mergers etc are all also considered and applied. Also, very importantly, the order placed is only traded considering the prices received from the exchange after the placement of the order. In a near real-time price feed scenario the order gets transacted at the price received from the exchange in few minutes. This ensures no manipulation by looking at the live BSE terminal or live prices and taking undue advantage in the challenge.

Before you begin, it's important to read the Getting Started and Trading Rules. We would welcome your feedback and comment to make this simulation better. Hence, do report suggestions/bugs, if any, using the feedback form provided on the right hand side of the page.

PORTFOLIO

This screen lists out all the stocks that are currently held in your portfolio. The columns in the table are

• Company: Name of company. On clicking the (i) symbol provides transaction details of that company.
• Quantity: Quantity of the shares held.
• Avg Price: The average price at which the stock has been bought. It is likely that the stock has been accumulated at different points in time at different prices. This shows the average cost of purchase.
• CMP:  Current Market Price of the stock
• Current Value: The market value of the current scrip held. This is primarily the CMP * Qty
• Gain/Loss: This is either the Gain or Loss being incurred on the stock held in portfolio. This is calculated as (CMP – Avg Price) * Qty.
• Return%: The gain/loss percentage for that company.
• ‘Buy More’ button: On clicking this button the order form page will be prefilled with the selected company’s details. You just need to enter the additional quantity you want to buy.
• ‘Sell’ button: On clicking this button the order form page will be prefilled with the selected company’s details. You just need to click ‘sell’ to place the sell order..

PLACING AN ORDER

To buy,sell or short shares we need to use the Text box as shown in the diagram. In the textbox where it says ‘Select a scrip.’ type at least the first three characters of the company name. On doing so, you will get a dropdown of company names starting with those three characters. Select the company from the list. On doing so you will see the market details for that company.

• Scrip:  The name of the company selected. CMP is ‘Current Market Price’.
• Operation: Players have an option to select buy,sell or short shares. You can only sell shares that are held by you. Short selling is permitted. Short selling involves selling shares that you do not hold in your portfolio with the intention of buying it back on the same day hopefully at a lesser price.
• Order: Here we select the type of order, i.e. ‘Market’ or ‘Limit’. If ‘Market’ is selected then the shares are bought at the current market price. And for ‘Limit’ a limit price needs to be specified. In case of a buy order with a limit price, the stock will only be bought if current price is equal to or lower than limit price. Vice versa applies for sell.
• Quantity: The quantity of a particular share that you intend to buy or sell needs to be entered.
• Stop Loss: The market value of the current scrip held. This is primarily the CMP * Qty
• Gain/Loss: ‘Stop Loss’ as the name suggests is to stop losses in case the price of the stock invested into moves the other way. For example if you purchased Company A at Rs 100 then you can decide the loss that you are ready to take on this investment decision. If you place the stop loss price at Rs 90/- then a sell order will automatically come into existence if the price of Company A touches or slips below 90. Do note all stop loss orders expire on the same day.
• Chart: It gives you a graph of how the prices of the selected stock has moved with time today.
• Place Order or Cancel: To place an order into the system press ‘Place Order’. In case you want to cancel placing the order or want to go back to the previous screen then press ‘Close’.

After placing the order you will see the status of the placed orders in ‘Pending Orders’ table below the Portfolio table. Once it gets confirmed then it moves to the ‘Portfolio’ table. You may note that it takes few minutes for even a market order to execute. This is on purpose and the reason to do so is explained in the section ‘Fair Price Execution’. Once your order gets executed the same will appear part of the Portfolio table. In case your order had a stop loss price as well then you will notice the stop loss order appear in the ‘Stop Loss’ table below. Do note this order will only get active if the Stop Loss price is reached in the exchange.
Note: All pending orders and stop loss orders expire on the same day.

WATCH LIST

Here you can add stocks that you want to keep a track of. To add a stock you need to enter the first three characters of the company in the Textbox above the table and select the company. Stocks added here are not part of your portfolio until you Buy them. Note: At any point of time you are allowed to keep only 10 companies in a watch list.

TRADES

‘Trades’ is a very informative page to get a complete log on all the activities that have taken place on your portfolio since inception. All transactions are recorded here. All corporate benefit adjustments etc are also reflected here. This also acts as your cash balance book. Since the beginning how the cash has been debited/credited owing to transactions, brokerage, corporate benefits etc can be followed.

SOLD HISTORY:

Sold History lists all stocks that have been squared-off i.e. stocks that were bought earlier have been sold. These records show the profit or loss that was made by investing in these stocks. It is the amount profit or loss actually booked in the books.

ANALYTICS

Analytics is an interesting page to get more insight into the portfolio and its performance. The information is primarily provided in a graphical form. The first chart below shows the movement of your portfolio vs the sensex since inception. A good way to benchmark your investment proves against the sensex.

The second chart provided more detail about the weightage of stocks being held in your portfolio. It can give a quick snapshot on knowing which stocks your portfolio is more dependant on etc.

The third graph provides information on the weight age of the various industries in your portfolio. It will let you know how the different industries are weighing on the performance of your portfolio.

RANKING

This is the most interesting page where you come to know how you are faring vis a vis other challengers in the contest. The comparison is based on the percentage change in the portfolio since the beginning of a contest period till date. For example if your portfolio value was Rs 500,000/- at the beginning of the month then your portfolio percentage change will be taken with respect to Rs 500,000/-. If on 15th of the month the portfolio is 600,000 then the %change as of 15th of month is 20%. Depending on how this fares with respect to other challengers your rank will be determined. At the end of the month the winner for that month will be announced. Your closing Portfolio value at end of the month will become the opening Portfolio value for the next month etc. This applies to all challenge periods i.e. Day, Week, Month, Quarter and Start till Date (STD).

A short summary of the ranking is also displayed on the right column of the challenge.

CHAT

This is an interesting place to exchange information and trading tips with other challengers. You can post your thoughts or ask questions etc and receive answers, tips from fellow challengers. Once you click Forum a new window will open. Here you will observe the various topics posted in the forum. You may want to read various posts or also participate by submitting your post. This is a meeting or assembly for the open discussion.