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How to place a practice stock trade in 4 steps

The simulator trades with practice money against live prices, so you can learn the buttons before real money is involved. Five minutes covers it.

Step 1

Load a stock

Type a symbol into the ticker box and press Enter. The chart, the order book and the order ticket all switch to it. Your practice cash and buying power sit in the bar above.

The simulator top bar with the ticker box, practice cash and buying power marked
  1. The ticker box.
  2. Your practice cash.
  3. Buying power, the most you can spend on one order.
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Step 2

Place the order

Pick a size, pick an order type, then press BUY. A Limit order fills at your price or better. MKT fills right now at the market. If you just want to see a fill, the BUY MKT button above the chart does it in one click.

The order ticket with quantity, order type, bracket toggle and the buy button marked
  1. Size. Tap a chip or type a number.
  2. Order type.
  3. Bracket attaches a stop and a target in one go.
  4. BUY. SELL, SHORT and COVER work the same way.
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Step 3

Set a stop

Once you hold a position, click STOP on its row in the Positions tab. Pick a stop, or a trailing stop that follows the price up, then a quick percent distance. The box shows the exact price and what you would lose if it triggers. Stops and targets stay active in pre-market and after-hours too, using the latest quote. A thin stock can gap through your stop and fill worse, just as in real life.

The Stop Loss box with the stop type, a percent choice and the Set stop button marked
  1. Stop type.
  2. A quick percent distance.
  3. The stop price and the loss if it triggers.
  4. Set stop.
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Step 4

Close it and review it

Click SELL ALL on the position row, or press F. Every close lands in the Review tab and in your journal with your profit after fees. Add a tag for why you took the trade, then switch to By tag to see which setups work for you.

The Review tab listing closed trades, with the tag link and the By tag view marked
  1. Switch between the log and the By tag view.
  2. Click tag to label the trade.
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On a phone

The Trade view

Open the Trade view. Set the size, press SELL or BUY, and use Manage for your positions and stops.

The simulator trade view on a phone with the size, sell and buy buttons and the Manage tab marked
  1. Size.
  2. SELL.
  3. BUY.
  4. Manage, where positions and stops live.
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One round trip, with a stop, is the whole lesson. Do it a few times on names from the scanner and the review tab starts telling you something.

Open the simulator Next guide: Watchlist and alerts

More guides

Looking for something else? See the full manual or the Academy.