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Free stock market simulator: learn to invest in leagues
A stock market simulator lets you invest pretend money at real market prices, without risking your savings. It is good for learning to build, diversify and watch a portfolio, but not for finding out how you will react with real money. Competing in a league, with friends or your university, makes that learning steady and measurable.
9 min read
In short
- A stock market simulator teaches you to build and follow a portfolio at real prices, but it cannot recreate the fear of losing your own money.
- A good simulator charges fees, caps how much you can put in a single stock and ranks by risk-adjusted return, not just by how much you make.
- In a stock league everyone starts with the same virtual capital and the same rules, so results can be compared.
- MyPortfolio leagues are free: join an open one, create a team with your friends or compete for your university in the University Investment Challenge.
What is a stock market simulator and what is it for?
A stock market simulator is a practice portfolio: you get virtual capital, buy stocks, ETFs or funds that are really traded, and the portfolio rises or falls with the real market. No money is at stake, so a mistake costs you nothing but some pride.
It is good for what is hard to learn from books: deciding how much to put in each holding, seeing what a bad week does to your portfolio, noticing how much fees eat if you trade a lot, and finding out that diversifying is not about owning many stocks but about owning stocks that do not all fall at once.
There is a need for it. In Spain, the 2021 Financial Competences Survey by Banco de España and the CNMV found that only 52% of adults answer the risk diversification question correctly, and only 12% say they received financial education at university.
What does a simulator not teach you?
The big difference is emotional. With pretend money you take risks more lightly. In Holt and Laury's classic experiment (American Economic Review, 2002), participants became much more risk averse when large payoffs were real, while scaling up hypothetical payoffs barely changed their behaviour. What you do in a simulator is what you would do without fear, not what you will do with your savings.
Competition adds a bias of its own. Brown, Harlow and Starks (Journal of Finance, 1996) studied 334 US growth funds from 1976 to 1991: those losing at mid-year raised their risk in the second half more than those winning. The same happens in a league: whoever is behind is tempted to bet everything on one card. That is why the rules matter.
You will not see taxes either, and selling a hard-to-trade stock will cost you nothing. Think of it as a training ground: the market rules are real; your nerves, not quite.
What to look for in a free stock market simulator
Nearly every simulator lets you buy and sell. What separates a game from a learning tool is whether it resembles the real market and whether it rewards investing well rather than landing one lucky bet. These are the five things worth checking, and how the open MyPortfolio leagues handle them as of 7 October 2026.
| What to check | Why it matters | In MyPortfolio leagues |
|---|---|---|
| Real prices | With made-up prices you learn a game, not the market. | Stocks, ETFs and, in some leagues, funds at their real quotes; the portfolio is valued every day. |
| Fees | If trading is free, you learn to shuffle your portfolio every day. | 0.1% of every purchase and every sale. |
| Diversification rules | Without limits, whoever bets everything on one stock wins. | No holding above 20% when you buy, and at least 60% of the capital invested. |
| Risk-adjusted ranking | If only gains count, luck gets rewarded. | The University Investment Challenge ranks by return adjusted for risk and maximum drawdown; every ranking shows a quality score. |
| When you can trade | Trading at any time invites you to react to every headline. | You change the portfolio in rebalancing windows; between windows it moves with the market. |
How does a stock league work?
You sign up for free
With a MyPortfolio account, accepting that league's rules. Each league has its own dates; some accept late entries once they have started.
You build your portfolio with the same capital as everyone else
Everyone starts from the same virtual amount, for example $10,000 in the University Investment Challenge or $100,000 in the Rankia Challenge 2026. Before the start you split that money into buy orders, which are filled at the opening price on the first day.
You play by real fund rules
In the open leagues: a 0.1% fee per trade, at most 20% in a single holding and at least 60% invested. Some leagues ask for more: the University Investment Challenge requires at least 5 holdings, keeps those above 10% at no more than 40% combined and does not allow leveraged or inverse products.
You rebalance in windows
Between windows the portfolio is locked. When one opens (in the University Investment Challenge, the last weekend of each month), you set the weight you want for each holding and the changes are filled at the open of the first business day after it closes.
You follow the rankings
The portfolio is valued daily at real prices. Besides the overall ranking there are rankings by country, by team and, in the University Investment Challenge, by university and by investment club.
How to run a league with friends, a class or your university
With friends, the simplest way is a team inside an open league. When you sign up, choose “Create team”, give it a name and share its invitation link, on WhatsApp for example. A team needs at least 2 members and scores with its members' average in its own ranking, while everyone still competes in the overall one. You get your private rivalry and, at the same time, a benchmark of thousands of investors.
With a class or a closed group, the way is a private tournament: it does not appear in the public list and you can only enter with an invitation code. Tournaments are created by the MyPortfolio team, so a teacher or a club has to ask for one; faculties can request information from the University Investment Challenge page.
With your university it is already set up: the University Investment Challenge is free for anyone enrolled at a university, runs from 13 October 2026 to 30 April 2027 and is played with $10,000 in virtual money. When you sign up you pick your university, and each university scores with the average of its 10 best participants. If your investment club gathers at least 10, it also competes as a club. As of 7 October 2026 there were 1,067 participants signed up.
What do you learn by competing?
Diversification, because the rules push you into it: with a 20% cap per holding you need at least five positions to invest everything, and you soon see that five tech stocks fall together.
Maximum drawdown, because you live through it. Seeing your portfolio 15% below its peak and understanding that it needs to rise 17.6% to get back teaches more than any formula; we explain it in the article on drawdown.
Risk-adjusted return, because winning is not enough in the ranking. The quality score next to each participant combines the Sortino ratio, which measures how much you earn per unit of downside, and the maximum drawdown. It is a close relative of the Sharpe ratio, which has its own article too.
And costs and patience: with 0.1% per trade and monthly windows, you learn that moving your portfolio has a price and that most weeks the best move is to do nothing.
The takeaway
A stock market simulator will not make you rich or fully prepare you for the fear of losing real money, but it does teach you to build a portfolio with judgement. Pick one with real prices, fees, diversification limits and a ranking that rewards well-managed risk, and use it in a league: competing with others forces you to decide, measure and compare.
When you take the step to invest for real, MyPortfolio can copy your league portfolio into a personal portfolio so you can follow it with your own trades. MyPortfolio does not move money: it only helps you measure it.
Frequently asked questions
Is there a free stock market simulator with virtual money and real prices?
Yes. MyPortfolio leagues are free, use real quotes for stocks, ETFs and, in some leagues, funds, and give everyone the same virtual capital. You only need to create an account.
Can you lose money in a stock market simulator?
No. The capital is virtual and no real order is placed. The only thing you can lose is places in the ranking.
How does a university stock market competition work?
In the University Investment Challenge each student manages $10,000 in virtual money under diversification rules and competes in an overall ranking, one by university (average of its 10 best) and one by investment club. The ranking rewards risk-adjusted return, not the riskiest bet.
Can I create a stock league with my friends?
Yes, as a team inside an open league: you create it when you sign up and share the link. You need at least 2 members and you get your own team ranking.
Does a simulator help you learn to invest for real?
It helps you learn to build, diversify and measure a portfolio. It does not recreate the fear of losing your own money, which in studies makes people more cautious, so it is wise to start small when you move to real investing.