Buddy Lists
To add a Buddy, click on the icon "add to Buddies" wherever you see a player name. An email will be sent to that player notifying them of your desire to add them to your Buddy List. When a Buddy has accepted your invitation, you will receive an email confirmation. You will also then be able to see them in your Buddy List.
The Buddies tab on the Leaderboard is where you can see how you are performing against your friends and peers. Currently, you can see only up to five Buddies on the Leaderboard. In the future, you will be able to create your own private "leagues" or games where you can invite friends and play together.
You will receive an email and you will have a notice in your Profile page. Click the "Accept Buddy" link on your profile page to become Buddies with them.
To find other players, you can always use the Search tool at the top right of every page and type in a player name, First name or Last name. You can then easily add them to your Buddy List from the Search Results.
Every player gets a Buddy List. On it, you can see their photo, portfolio value, and current Contest rank.
Trading
Starter Portfolios are only available when you open a new account or Reset your Portfolio.
The Financial Post Stock Market Challenge supports trading on NYSE, NASDAQ, AMEX and TSX.
If you don't know the ticker symbol, click on the "Research" link on the top horizontal navigation bar of the Financial Post Stock Challenge site and then on "Symbol Lookup”" and enter the company name.
You can monitor your account's overall ranking and open positions from the Dashboard.
A stock or equity is an investment that represents a share of ownership in a corporation. An "equity" holding in a publicly traded corporation entitles you to part of the company's earnings and assets without any liability risk. The two main types of shares are common and preferred stocks. Common stock gives the owner the right to vote at shareholders meetings and receive dividends if any are declared. While preferred shares typicall don't confer voting rights, they have priority over common shares for earnings and assets. This means when a company declares dividends, preferred shareholders are paid before common ones and have a higher claim to assets if the company goes bankrupt and is liquidated.
An investment portfolio is a collection of investment assets, such as stocks, bonds, ETFs, mutual funds, derivatives, real estate and commodities. Investment portfolios should be constructed after carefully assessing the investor's goals, objectives and portfolio, such as age, growth and income requirements, risk tolerance and liquidity needs
A market order is an order to buy or sell a specified number of shares (or bonds, etc. ) at the best available price when the order is submitted. All orders that don't bear a specific price are considered market orders.
A limit order is an order in which a specific price is set to buy or sell a security. If the price point is hit and there is sufficient volume at that price point or better, your order will be filled.
A stop order is an order to buy or sell a stock when the stock price reaches a specified price, which is known as a stop price. When the specified price is reached, the stop order becomes a market order.
(a) A Sell Stop Order is used by investors and traders long a stock to protect an existing profit or avoid further losses if the stock price drops. A stop order to sell must be placed below the current market price.
(b) A Buy Stop Order is used by investors and traders short a stock to protect a profit or limit a loss if the stock price increases.
A stop order to buy must be entered at a price above the current market price.
An open order, which remains current until it is executed, is an order to buy or sell a security at a specified price. Open orders are usually submitted within a specified time frame (e.g. , 30 days).
A wise investor will always conduct some type of analysis before making an investment. Acting on hot tips or no-brainers or blindly following the crowd rarely pay off. There must be a justifiable reason to buy or sell a stock so prudent investors will conduct a fundamental analysis and/or technical analysis.
A fundamental analysis determines a stock's value through the analysis of the quality of management, financial data, the industry in which the company operates, their competition and other factors that are 'fundamental' to the company's operations. Such an analysis excludes the equity market's overall condition, market psychology and behavioral variables or the market's technical analysis
There are many approaches to a fundamental analysis. Some investors take a "value" approach, which means they focus on analyzing and determining items such as book value, intrinsic value, free cash flow, price/earnings ratio and dividend yield. Other investors are more "growth" oriented, delving instead into issues such as future earnings and revenue growth rates. In addition, differing methodologies and yardsticks are generally used depending on the industry in which the company operates.
The Training Portfolio allows Registrants to track their progress and evaluate how well their stocks are doing, without affecting their contest results. The Contest Portfolio is what game officials will use to determine a players success in the challenge and what a player will be evaluated on for Prizing.
Each Trade made by a Trader or Investor in their Training Portfolio will incur a broker commission fee of $25.00.