Everybody has that one trader or broker friend who tells them the stock market is “just a game.” Well, he’s right – at least in that regard.
Canada-based Neutron Enterprises recently published an online stock market simulator named Wall Street Survivor, www.wallstreetsurvivor.com. Even though it’s still in its Beta phase, the surprisingly well-polished and highly professional simulator not only gives its users a chance to play the trades without risking their money, but to get a chance at a large cash prize.
The game is fairly simple; each new trader starts off with a $100,000 “fantasy portfolio” they can invest real-time into the market. Since the market used in the simulator is the same one already established here in the real world – including the Nasdaq, the NYSE, the OTC and AMEX – there’s no learning curve for investors. Just log in, get your bearings, and start trading.
“It takes on the form of an interactive simulation,” Rory Olson, Neutron Enterprises’ chief executive officer and chairman said in a recent interview with MN1. “The thing that’s very unique about [the simulation] is the fact that we’ve taken it from the approach of creating a financial services portal, one where the user can actually have the experience of what it would be like to be trading in a brokerage house. If you were a broker in a brokerage house, you would have access to execution of your trades in real-time, you would have access to all the portfolio-building tools you would have in context of a brokerage account.”
The list of these portfolio-building tools is exhaustive, to say the least. In addition to discussion forums, blogs, up-to-the-minute market indices and news, users can also access something Olson calls “Guru Central” – a place where users can see what Wall Street gurus like Warren Buffet has in his portfolio and how he’s trading.
But the biggest draw for the simulator is the fat cash prize awaiting the contest winner. Right now, the winner of the alpha contest can win up to $10,000, but Olson said that his company is gearing up for $50,000, $100,000, and even a $1 million prize pool.
But don’t let the nature of the simulator fool you; Olson takes it seriously, and sees it as far more than just a way to keep border brokers and traders occupied.
“Our mission really is to service the educational sector and the corporate sector in providing training platform simulations,” Olson said. “[We also plan on using it to] service the consumer contest sector and provide a contest model which serves as a training platform as well as an educational platform, so it’s even a far more robust experience than the experience the educational institutions are capable of.”
In fact, Olson said its uses as a training tool far outweigh any value it has as a game.
“What we’re trying to do is serve up a realistic experience,” Olson said. “We have parents who are signed on who are using it as a tool to explain the stock markets to their children. At the end of it, what better way to show kids what the investment experience is like than to be able have them entered into some kind of contest?”
Olson went on to say that it’s as good a training tool for adults as children.
“If I’m Joe Q. Public and I don’t really understand an awful lot [about the market,]” Olson said, “and I don’t really know what to do to build the portfolio, what better access than to the top 50 gurus in the United States?”
With all these bells and whistles available for users, some would say “that’s enough” and call it quits. Olson and Neutron Enterprises are already working on the next iteration of the simulator, which is ready to be released in August of 2007.
“It’s going to make this thing look like bear skins and stone knives,” Olson said with a laugh.
Still, Olson is proud of the product his company’s already put out.
“It’s the Rolls Royce’ [of simulators,]” he said.
To join in on the beta, visit www.wallstreetsurvivor.com.