Trading Day

Are you a high school sophomore or junior interested in the stock market?

Participants of Trading Day prepare for instructions


The School of Business at Stevens Institute of Technology has run the Trading Day competition for 10th and 11th grade high school students for the past two years.

Trading Day incorporates both a virtual and live trading competition, as well as educational webinars which are moderated by the finance faculty at Stevens on topics such as understanding:

  • How the stock market works

  • What inflation is and how it affects the market

  • What are the intricacies of the cryptocurrency markets

  • How the Covid-19 pandemic affected the financial markets

The trading competition portion of this program is structured as a trading game, which allows students to learn about investing in the equities markets in a fun interactive way. Each student will create a mock portfolio using the Dow Jones MarketWatch Virtual Stock Exchange, an easy-to-use trading simulator which provides real time market data, news, and historical pricing information on indexes, listed and OTC securities. Participants will receive $1,000,000 in play money to invest and build their portfolios. Over 1200 high school students from around the world registered and participated in the virtual trading competition over the last two years. Additionally, every student that registers and participates in the trading game and learning modules is encouraged to add this program to their future college applications.

Each year, the 25 students with the top performing portfolios at the end of the month-long virtual investing competition are invited to our campus, located in Hoboken, New Jersey, for a live trading competition which is held in our Hanlon Financial Systems Center trading labs. At this event, students also hear directly from our finance faculty about the latest trends in the financial industry, take a “Bloomberg 101” tutorial, receive a campus tour and get the opportunity to utilize the 24 Bloomberg terminals that we have in our trading labs.

This is a free* program, open to domestic and international students who are in their sophomore or junior year of high school.

Important Dates

  • December 7, 2023 - Registration Opens

  • January 19, 2024 - Registration Deadline

  • February 1, 2024 - Virtual Trading Competition begins

  • February 29, 2024 - Virtual Competition Ends

  • April 19, 2024 - Live Trading Competition Event

Webinar: AI and Finance

Presented by Assistant Professor and Director of the Fintech Certificate Program Zachary Feinstein on February 12, 2024 at 6 pm.

Zoom Link

Instructions and Reminders

***Please note that every participant that can be identified in the virtual trading game will receive a Certificate of Completion emailed to them if you join the game at any point between 2/1 - 2/29. This is a wonderful opportunity to include Stevens Trading Day 2024 on your future college applications. 

  1. You must create a profile in MarketWatch.com in order to join the game. Please review the Advance Packet that was emailed to all registrants for instructions.

  2. Additionally, you must only trade under one MarketWatch profile. You will be removed from the game if you are competing with multiple profiles. 

  3. You may join the game prior to 2/1, but do not start trading until Thursday February 1.

  4. The US stock market is open for trading from 9:30am - 4:00pm EST, so orders will only be processed during those hours.

  5. If you are not a high school sophomore or junior and make it to the "Top 25" on the Leaderboard, you will not be invited to our campus in Hoboken, NJ.

  6. If you have not shared your MarketWatch profile name or cannot be identified in the game, you will not be invited to campus.  

  7. If you make inappropriate comments in the "Chat," you will be removed from the game.

If you have technical issues or questions about the MarketWatch trading simulator, please complete a ticket hereand someone from our team will reply to your inquiry as soon as possible.

Last Year's Winners

  • Virtual Trading Competition held February 1 to February 28, 2023

  • Live Trading Competition held March 31, 2023

Trading Day winner Vinay Venkatesh stands next to Lindsay Hartelius
, holding a trophy and speaker prize

First Place Winner

Vinay Venkatesh of Lynbrook High School in San Jose, California

Second Place Winner Veer Bhasin stands between Associate Dean Joelle Saad-Lessler on his left and Lindsay Hartelius on his right

Second Place Winner

Veer Bhasin of Saint John's High School in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts

If you are interested in more information about the School of Business at Stevens, please contact Assistant Director of Undergraduate Outreach and Reputation
 Lindsay Hartelius here to schedule an appointment or email any inquires to [email protected]

*While our educational program is free, if you are invited to Stevens, you will be responsible for your own travel costs.