Trading Places
Playing the stock market can resemble blackjack-table guesswork. But move the market to a Web-based simulation -- giving yourself $100,000 in Monopoly money in the process -- and you might learn something.</br></br>These simulations have become popular parts of personal finance and "portal" sites. Most of the real-world rules apply, and each transaction costs a commission of $15 or so. Top finishers can win prizes, converting their funny money to hard cash. Almost all games build in a 20-minute time delay from the market and reset players' accounts on the first of the month.</br></br>I tried games at E*Trade and Yahoo, starting with a shameful lack of knowledge in either trading or investing. In each I wound up with a little less money, but much wiser in the ways of the market.</br></br>com was the geekier of the two, with a customizable main menu that automatically graphs major market indicators throughout the day. Its handy "stockwatch" feature lets you set upper and lower boundaries for a stock's price, then alerts you when it crosses either limit. But E*Trade's inability to memorize my log-in was annoying, and its trial-by-fire approach doesn't help beginners.</br></br>Yahoo's Investment Challenge http://quote.yahoo.com had trouble executing some trades and didn't let me peruse my trading history, making it harder to track how much I'd paid for what. But its news updates, customized for one's holdings, effectively teach how stocks move according to news throughout the day.