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 1, 2023 - Trading Game Registration opens

  • February 1, 2024 - Virtual Trading Competition begins

> Download the Advance Packet

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

For questions, please contact:
Lindsay Hartelius

Assistant Director of Undergraduate Outreach and Reputation

[email protected] 

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