What a Student Stock Market Competition Asks of You
To prepare for a stock market competition, learn the simulator before trading starts, learn a handful of basic investing terms, and pick two or three companies you can explain in plain words. Then practise writing down why you bought each one, because judges will ask. Preparation is less about predicting prices and more about having a reason you can defend.
A student stock market competition is usually longer than people expect. The Wolves of Wall Street Competition, for example, runs for 12 weeks on Saturdays. It mixes teaching sessions and office hours with Harvard student mentors, and students trade on a simulator through the week. Near the end there is a semi-final, where teams present their portfolio and analysis. The top 10 finalists then pitch their investment thesis live to a panel of judges in the grand final, for a share of a $1,000 prize pool split across the top finalist teams.
The next cohort kicks off on Saturday, 24 October 2026 at 9 AM ET. Registration is $100, or $80 at the early-bird rate. If you are still choosing between programs, our list of financial literacy competitions for teens compares the main options.
Example: Two students enter the same week. One spends the first Saturday learning where the buy button is. The other already knows the platform, has a short list of companies, and spends that session asking the mentor about one of them. They start with the same virtual cash, but the second student starts with a plan.
Solo or Team?
You can enter on your own or as part of a team. Teams have a minimum of 2 and a maximum of 5 students. If you sign up solo, you are matched with other students by region first, then by grade within that region. When there aren’t enough students in the same grade, the next grade up is used.
Choose a team you form yourself if you already have friends who will actually show up every Saturday and do their share of the research. Enter solo if your friends aren’t interested, if your schedule is different from theirs, or if you would rather work with students from other places. Either way, you end up on a team, so the real question is whether you want to pick your teammates or be matched with them.
Example: Aisha and three classmates already run a school investing club, so they enter as a team of four and split the research by sector. Daniel is the only student at his school who is interested, so he enters solo and gets matched by region with students in his grade. Both choices are sensible. They just start from different places.
Set Up and Practise on the Simulator Before the First Week
The competition trades on a simulator, so the first thing to fix is how the platform works. Create your account early and place a few practice orders. Find where your holdings, cash and returns are shown. If you are not sure what a simulator is or how virtual orders fill, read our guide to what a stock market simulator is first.
Treat this as a rehearsal, not a contest. The goal is to stop making mistakes with the platform itself, such as typing the wrong ticker or buying 100 shares when you meant 10. Then you can spend competition weeks on decisions.
Example: You start a practice portfolio with $100,000 in virtual cash. You put $40,000 into Company A, $30,000 into Company B and $30,000 into Company C. If Company A rises 5%, that position grows by $2,000 to $42,000, and your whole portfolio rises from $100,000 to $102,000. That is a 2% gain overall, not 5%, because only part of your money was in the stock that moved. If Company A falls 5% instead, the portfolio drops by the same $2,000.
Five Terms to Learn Before You Start
This is where a stock market competition for beginners gets easier. You don’t need a finance vocabulary, but these five come up every week:
- Diversification. Spreading your money across several companies or industries, so one bad result does not sink the whole portfolio.
- Position size. How much of your portfolio is in a single holding. A $40,000 position in a $100,000 portfolio is 40% of it.
- P/E ratio. The share price divided by the company’s earnings per share. It gives a rough sense of how much investors are paying for each dollar of profit.
- Earnings report. The results a public company releases each quarter, showing sales, profit and often its outlook. Prices can move sharply on the day it comes out.
- Stop-loss. In general investing, an instruction to sell a holding if its price falls to a level you set in advance, to limit how much you can lose on it. Check whether your simulator supports it before relying on one.
If you are brand new to investing, our beginner’s guide to investing for teens covers the basics. For a free way to go deeper, our list of the best investing books for teens explains these ideas in more detail.
Example: A student sees two companies in the same industry. One has a P/E ratio of 15 and the other 45. That does not mean the first is a bargain. It means investors expect much faster profit growth from the second, and the student’s job is to decide whether that expectation looks reasonable.
Pick Two or Three Companies You Already Understand
You will make better decisions about businesses you use and can describe. Before the competition starts, choose two or three and ask the same three questions about each: what does it sell, how does it make money, and what could go wrong?
Example: Take Spotify, which many students use every day. What it sells: music and podcast streaming, with a free tier and paid Premium plans. How it makes money: mostly from monthly subscriptions, plus advertising on the free tier, while paying a large share of its revenue to record labels and rights holders. What could go wrong: labels could demand higher payments, competitors such as Apple Music or YouTube Music could win users, and price rises could push subscribers to cancel. A student who can answer those three questions has something real to say about the stock.
What Judges Will Ask You to Explain
In the final rounds, the return on your portfolio is only part of the story. Judges want to know why you bought what you bought, what risks you saw, and what you changed when new information arrived. A team that lost a little but can explain every decision often makes a stronger case than one that got lucky.
Keep a short note for each trade from the first week, so you are not rebuilding your reasoning the night before the pitch. When you are ready for the full version, our guide to building a portfolio that stands out to judges is the next step.
Example: A judge asks a team why 35% of its portfolio sits in one chip maker. The team that prepared answers with its reasons, the risk it accepted, and the price at which it planned to cut the position. The team that didn’t says the stock was going up.
Frequently Asked Questions
How do I prepare for a stock market competition?
Learn the simulator before trading starts and get comfortable with a few basic terms. Pick two or three companies you understand, and write down a reason for every trade. Judges ask you to explain your decisions, so that habit matters more than any single pick.
Do I need investing experience to enter?
No. The Wolves of Wall Street Competition is open to students in grades 8–12 with no prior investing experience required. Its teaching sessions and mentor office hours are there to bring newer students up to speed.
Can I enter a student stock market competition alone?
Yes. You can enter solo, and you will be matched with other students by region and then by grade. You can also enter as a team of 2 to 5.
Is a stock market competition worth it for a high school student?
A stock market competition for high school students is worth it if you want to practise investing with feedback, not just read about it. You trade with virtual money, so there is no real financial risk. You also learn to research a company and defend your choices in front of judges, which is useful well beyond the competition.