Learning guide

Learn at your own pace

Use Tutorial in the game for help with its controls. This guide explains the ideas behind your decisions, with optional questions for classroom discussion. Tap dotted-underlined terms for a quick definition. Ask the reporter to think through your current portfolio; it does not predict prices or place orders. After a session, use the recap for reflection.

A 30-minute classroom stock market activity

This suggested lesson uses a fictional timed market. Prepare an authorized classroom and test its settings before the lesson; the timings below are a teaching plan, not a preset.

  1. Minutes 0–5: make a prediction. Ask students what a company headline might change and why. Introduce cash, shares and net worth. Set a goal: explain one decision with evidence.
  2. Minutes 5–10: join and plan. Share the room code, allow time to join and have students choose how much virtual cash to keep available. Check that everyone understands how to place an order before starting.
  3. Minutes 10–20: trade and pause. Start the market. After a headline, pause and ask: what changed, which company might be affected, and what else could happen? Resume so students can compare their predictions with the simulation.
  4. Minutes 20–30: compare and reflect. Finish the session and review the recap. Ask students to describe one trade, its opportunity cost and one uncertainty. Compare explanations as well as returns; a single result cannot prove a strategy.

For another group, save a lesson template with your settings and questions. A room created from that template starts fresh, without the previous group's roster or trades. Open the educator workspace.

Education mode

Only approved stock listings appear in real-stock search or can be traded. Cannabis, firearms, tobacco, alcohol, gambling, adult entertainment, and military-weapons businesses are excluded. Unknown listings, funds, and unreviewed live news are unavailable. Fictional markets use the game's authored company catalog.

The starter real-stock pool is Apple, Microsoft, Adobe, Duolingo, Salesforce, Intuit, Zoom, and SAP on their approved exchanges. This classroom-content policy considers the business itself; it is not an investment recommendation or a certification of every customer, supplier, subsidiary, or product. The site owner must review changes to the pool. Students and instructors cannot override it from game settings.

How cash, shares and portfolio value fit together

Net worth is cash plus the value of your shares. Buying shares changes where your money is held; it does not create profit. Selling turns shares back into cash. Percentage return is profit divided by starting cash, multiplied by 100: a $50 gain on $1,000 is 5%.

For example, start with $1,000 of virtual cash and buy 10 shares at $20. You now have $800 cash and $200 in shares: still $1,000 total. If the simulated price rises to $23, your shares are worth $230 and net worth is $1,030, a 3% gain. If it falls to $17, net worth is $970, a 3% loss. Selling converts the shares into cash at the execution price.

Plan a trade

A limit sell sets your minimum price. A $25 limit waits for $25 or higher. A stop loss triggers a sale when the price falls to your threshold. If a stock jumps past an $18 stop to $16, it may sell at $16. Check pending orders after a sale: separate orders do not cancel each other.

Diversification spreads investments across companies and sectors. It can reduce some risks, but several holdings can still fall together.

Economics in everyday life

Choose a concept for an example. Then look for it in your own decisions.

Supply and demand Opportunity cost Inflation Incentives
Optional classroom discussion
  • With $100 available, how much would you invest and how much would you keep in cash?
  • What was the next-best alternative to your last trade? That is its opportunity cost.
  • What would happen to your portfolio if your largest holding lost 20%?
  • Pick a completed trade: what did you expect, what happened, and what would you change?

The game compresses time and leaves out fees and taxes. A profitable trade can still be risky, and a winning round does not prove a strategy will work in real life.

Run a classroom session

  1. Open Instructor and create an educator account. Open beta requires an adult/educator declaration. Save your private recovery code. Use adult-only test classrooms while trying the beta; obtain school authorization before using it with students.
  2. Create a classroom. Choose a continuous market for an ongoing class or a timed competition for a short activity.
  3. Share the room code. Students choose approved nicknames and join before you press Start.
  4. Use Pause to stop the clock and orders for discussion. A running continuous market advances while everyone is away, at the selected market speed.
  5. Open your instructor dashboard on another device to manage your sessions. Check each room's storage deadline. Open the room or choose Extend storage to keep it another 90 days. Delete room removes its game data. Archive pauses and hides a session from active use without deleting it.

Students reconnect in their remembered browser or use a private rejoin code or link. If they lose it, the owning instructor can retrieve it from Room menu > Student rejoin codes. Clearing browser site data does not delete the server-saved classroom. The public room code and nickname alone do not identify a portfolio. Continuous markets here are fictional simulations, not real exchange feeds. Realistic solo mode uses provider quotes and may be delayed.