Rules of The Stock Market Game Program
REMEMBER--February 2008
Welcome to The Stock Market Game program – celebrating its 30th
Anniversary! Please take a moment to read some important information
about regarding your upcoming session.
When you are ready to
begin the session, students should visit www.stockmarketgame.org and enter their team username and password in the appropriate spaces. (Please remember, both are case sensitive).
A few reminders about the program:
1. The CT program uses end-of-day pricing. Transactions entered after
the markets open will receive the closing price of the stock/fund.
Trades entered after 4pm will receive the following day’s closing
price. If you are interested real-time pricing, please let me know and
I will place your teams in a non-competitive region.
2. Please have your students double check their region (elementary,
middle, or high school). The region is listed on the homepage of each
portfolio.
3. Students will be ranked against the performance of the S&P 500
and rankings will be updated daily. Teams will not be included in the
rankings until they have entered their first trade. If you would like
to see the rankings of just your class (and not the entire list) visit
the Teacher Support Center and click on “View Rankings and Portfolios.”
Then click “…See Team Rankings.” You will be able to see how each team
is doing as well as those teams that have not entered trades.
4. Your students will see two rankings listed when they click
“Rankings” in their portfolio. The Regional ranking includes all of the
teams competing in their age group (elementary, middle, and high
school). The Coordinator ranking includes all teams participating in
the game session. This ranking is solely for motivational purpose (i.e.
if your high school students have a lower equity than an elementary
team, they may want to adjust their investing strategy).
5. The last day of your session is 5/2 but the last day your students can enter trades is 5/1.
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1. Each team begins the simulation with $100,000 in cash and may borrow
additional funds. How much you may borrow is dependent upon the equity in
your account. Interest is charged weekly on negative cash balances at an annual
rate of 7.00%, and credited weekly on positive cash balances at an annual rate
of 5.00%. Interest is calculated daily, then summed for the week (Saturday
through Friday) and posted on the following Tuesday. The daily rate is based
upon a 365 day year. Daily Interest = Cash * Appropriate Interest Rate(as a
decimal) / 365
2. You may trade only stocks and mutual funds listed on the American Stock
Exchange, Nasdaq Stock Market and the New York Stock Exchange that have
traded within the last 7 days. Canadian stocks traded on these exchanges will
be priced within these markets but the current value is calculated using Canadian exchange prices adjusted using the current exchange rate for the American dollar equivalent.
3. End of Day Game transactions are priced at market daily closing prices. These
prices can be found in the next day's newspaper or by using the price quote
facilities of SMG. Real Time Game transactions are priced at the market price
at the time of entry.
All Mutual Fund transactions are treated as real time transactions and priced
at the previous day's closing price. This applies to both End of Day and Real
Time games
Transactions entered with a limit price will not be held past the initial attempt
to price the transaction. This applies to both the End of Day or Real Time Games.
4. All buy orders must be a minimum of 100 shares. Sell orders for less than
100 shares will be permitted.
5. SMG does not permit buying stocks or mutual funds that trade below $5
per share. Such orders will be rejected. Sell transactions for existing long
positions where transactions are executed at closing or real time prices will
be accepted, even if the price is less than $5.00 per share. (There are a number
of reasons for this rule. Low priced stocks, known as penny stocks, are very
risky and volatile investments. Accordingly, brokers will not permit their
customers to trade such securities on margin, just as SMG does not. Also,
penny stocks tend to have very shallow markets and their prices move sharply
with large orders, unlike SMG where transactions are executed at closing or
real time prices regardless of order size).
6. Trades can only be processed in whole and will be rejected if sufficient
buying power does not exist to execute the entire order.
7. A 2% broker's fee is charged for all transactions. For example, if you buy
100 shares of a stock at $10 per share, you must pay the 2% of $1000 or $20.
On Sell or Shortsell transactions an SEC fee of $15.30 per million gross rounded
to the nearest penny is also charged.
8. The Game is run Monday through Friday. Teams may trade on any day the participating stock markets are open. Orders may be entered 7 days a week 24
hours a day.
9. Trades entered after close of market (4:00 PM ET) will be priced at next day's
closing price for the End of Day Game and at opening price for the Real Time Game. Mutual Funds are always treated as real time trades but priced at the last closing
price
10. Teams do not have to liquidate their portfolios at the end of The Game.
Winners will be determined on the basis of either equity or the % return above/
below S&P 500 Growth. (Some states may use additional criteria to determine
winners).
Short sell/short cover rules
11. All short sell orders must be for a minimum of 100 shares. Short cover orders
for less than 100 shares will be permitted. Open ended mutual funds can not be short sold
12. SMG does not permit short sells on stocks or mutual funds that trade below
$5.00 per share. Such orders will be rejected. Short cover transactions for existing
short positions will be accepted, even if the price is less than $5.00 per share.
(See Rule #5 for an explanation).
Portfolios
13. A record of a team's portfolio and transactions will be available daily. A team
will not receive a portfolio nor be listed in regional rankings until its initial
transaction is entered successfully. A student can only be assigned to ONE portfolio
per game period
14. No back posting of trades will be done for trades of securities not contained
within the SMG Security Table. Once the missing security has been added to
the Security Table the security can then be traded. The same rule applies to trades rejected if they are incorrectly pricing below $5. Once the pricing has been
corrected the security can be traded.
15. Stock and cash dividends and stock splits are automatically computed into
your portfolio. However, you are required to check them for accuracy. Promptly
notify your Coordinator at their e-mail address of any problems you encounter.
Canadian stocks trading on US exchanges cannot be traded between a split's recorddate and payout date.
16. Participants of the end of day pricing game may delete pending transactions
prior to market close except in the case of Mutual Funds which are processed as
real time orders
Additional rules
17. Any violation of the rules of the SMG may result in the invalidation of a
transaction. Repeated violation of the rules may result in the disqualification of a team
18. Additional rules have been developed in some states and, if applicable, have been included in your Coordinator's Information Page. It is the responsibility of your team to learn and abide by all rules.
19. You must maintain a total equity position that is greater than or equal to 30% of the current value of your current holdings. If you don't you will receive a margin call.
Code of participation
1. SMG advisors must be responsible adults 18 years of age or older. In no case
may they be a matriculated student in grades K-12.
2. SMG advisors will ensure that every participant on their team(s) has read and understands the SMG Rules and the Code of Participation.
3. Teams that do not comply with the SMG Code of Participation will be
removed from the portfolio rankings.
4. The authority to remove a team from the rankings lies solely with the team's
SMG coordinator organization.
5. Each team is responsible for any opening or closing transactions entered into its portfolio
6. Teams may not enter transactions into portfolios other than their own. (Please note
that when a team asserts that a transaction was entered by a non-member of that
team, the team will nevertheless be ranked based on their portfolio's total equity,
which will include the challenged transaction.)
7. Only transactions stored on the SMG database will be recognized for purposes of evaluating portfolio total equity.
8. FIE will be responsible for the accuracy of the market data. If a team believes a stock price or other information is in error, it shall notify its SMG coordinator organization.
9. In the event of an error on the part of FIE and/or coordinator organization(s), their liability to a participant shall be limited to the refund of registration or other fees paid