Stock Market Game Rules and Grading: A Teacher's Setup Sheet
Last updated: September 2026 — Written and fact-checked by Clarissa Collins, Rapunzl editorial team. Every external figure is traced to a primary source and cited in full below.
A classroom stock market game lives or dies on six rules you settle before the first trade: starting balance, eligible investments, trading schedule, whether borrowing and short selling are allowed, team structure, and tie-breakers. Publish them on day one and give each a matching line in your rubric — that step is what separates a simulation that teaches investing from a lottery that rewards whoever gambled hardest.
Key facts at a glance
- The big programs start teams with $100,000. SIFMA's The Stock Market Game gives each team a $100,000 portfolio; Rapunzl's free simulator gives each student a simulated $10,000 stock-and-crypto portfolio (SIFMA Foundation, 2026; Rapunzl, 2026).
- Trade costs are part of the rules. SMG's published rules charge a $5-per-trade commission on all transactions plus an SEC fee on sales (SIFMA Foundation, 2019).
- Penny stocks are banned by default. SMG bars buying or short selling any stock below $3 a share and requires a minimum of 10 shares per buy order; Georgia's council uses the same floor — "stocks valued at $3 or less cannot be purchased" (SIFMA Foundation, 2019; GCEE, 2019).
- Borrowing is permitted in SMG — and it is expensive. Negative balances accrue 7% annually and positive cash earns 0.75%; short selling is allowed for stocks but "bonds and mutual funds cannot be sold short" (SIFMA Foundation, 2019).
- Three students per team is the field's sweet spot. Economics Arkansas notes "many teachers believe 3 is the ideal number as all are actively involved and there is a built in tie-breaker" (Economics Arkansas, 2018).
- A diversification rule beats a diversification lecture. Georgia's 3x3x3 rule requires a first trade by the end of week three, at least three different stocks or funds, and three holdings kept at least three business weeks (GCEE, 2019).
- Never grade on portfolio value. Georgia states it plainly: "it would be unfair to grade students on the value of their team's portfolio" (GCEE, 2019).
What rules does a classroom stock market game need?
A classroom stock market game needs six rules fixed before the first trade: the starting balance, the eligible investments, the trading schedule, whether margin and short selling are allowed, the team structure, and the tie-breaker. Write them down rather than improvise, because each rule quietly encodes a lesson. Unlimited trading teaches day-trading. No minimum holdings teaches concentration. A leaderboard with no published tie-breaker teaches that the last-day swing is what counts.
The six rules, with a default worth copying
| Rule | Default worth copying | What established programs do | What it teaches |
|---|---|---|---|
| Starting balance | One identical amount for every team | SMG: $100,000 per team; Rapunzl: simulated $10,000 per student | Percentage thinking, not dollar bragging |
| Eligible investments | Stocks, ETFs and mutual funds above $3 a share | SMG and GCEE both bar stocks at or below $3 | Penny-stock gambling is not investing |
| Trading schedule | One designated trading day per week | SMG fills real-time orders at entry; post-4pm ET orders fill at the next open | Research and patience over reaction |
| Margin and short selling | Off, unless you are teaching them deliberately | SMG allows both; 7% annual interest on negative balances | Leverage magnifies losses, not just gains |
| Team structure | Teams of three | Economics Arkansas: 1-5, "3 is the ideal number"; SMG guide: three to five | Shared reasoning, built-in tie-breaker |
| Minimum holdings | At least three different stocks or funds, held three weeks | GCEE's 3x3x3 rule | Diversification as a constraint, not advice |
Sources: SIFMA Foundation, "Rules of The Stock Market Game" and "SMG Teachers Guide"; GCEE, "Teaching the Game" (2019); Economics Arkansas, "Ten Easy Steps!" (2018); Rapunzl. Retrieved 2026-09-14.
How much virtual money should students start with?
Pick one number, give every team exactly the same amount, and keep it fixed for the whole unit — $10,000 and $100,000 are both defensible, and consistency matters far more than the figure. SMG uses $100,000 per team; Rapunzl's free simulator gives each student a simulated $10,000 (SIFMA Foundation, 2026; Rapunzl, 2026).
A smaller balance forces students to notice share prices, so position sizing becomes a real decision. Either way, report results as percentage return, never dollars.
What should students be allowed to buy?
Restrict students to stocks, ETFs and mutual funds priced above $3 a share, with a minimum order size, and say so in writing before the game opens. SMG bars buying or short selling a stock trading below $3 on the day before and the day of execution, and requires a minimum of 10 shares on buy orders (SIFMA Foundation, 2019); Georgia sets the same floor (GCEE, 2019).
That one rule removes most of the bad behaviour a short contest invites: without it, a team trailing in week four can buy 40,000 shares of a $0.25 stock and swing the leaderboard on noise. Decide the crypto question explicitly too.
How often should students be allowed to trade?
Limit trading to one designated day a week; continuous trading turns the unit into day-trading practice and crowds out the research you are grading. In a real-time SMG session, stock orders execute "at market price at the time of entry," while orders entered after 4pm ET or on a weekend fill at the next business day's opening price (SIFMA Foundation, 2019).
Announce one fairness wrinkle up front: Stock-Trak executes North American stock orders at real-time prices while displayed prices "are delayed by approximately 15 minutes" (Stock-Trak, 2026), so a fill can differ from the number a student clicked.
Should you allow short selling and margin?
Turn both off for a first-time class — they add risk students cannot yet interpret and are the fastest route to a portfolio that cannot recover. The SEC defines a margin account as one "in which the broker-dealer lends the investor cash, using the account as collateral, to purchase securities," and notes that margin exposes investors to the potential for larger losses (U.S. SEC, 2026a). A short sale is "the sale of a stock that an investor does not own," and "if the price of the stock rises, short sellers who buy it at the higher price will incur a loss" (U.S. SEC, 2026b).
If you do teach them, make it a named unit rather than a permanent setting, and let the costs argue: SMG charges 7% annually on negative balances while paying 0.75% on positive ones (SIFMA Foundation, 2019).
Should students compete in teams or individually?
Teams of three are the field default — small enough that everyone participates, odd enough that the team can break its own deadlock. Economics Arkansas puts it directly: "Divide your students into teams of 1 to 5 members. Many teachers believe 3 is the ideal number as all are actively involved and there is a built in tie-breaker" (Economics Arkansas, 2018). SMG's teacher guide suggests three to five (SIFMA Foundation, 2026).
Teams also change what you can grade: with individuals you grade a journal; with teams you grade the argument they had to agree on before trading.
What do you do when a student blows up their portfolio?
Do not reset the account — a wiped-out portfolio is still fully gradable, because the grade was never attached to the balance. A student who lost 60% on one bet can still earn full marks by documenting the decision, diagnosing it, and saying what they would change.
The better fix is preventive: a $3 price floor, a minimum-holdings rule and margin switched off together bound how badly a portfolio can go wrong. If a reset is unavoidable, reset the whole class on the same day and record it.
How do you break a tie?
Publish the tie-breaker before the game starts, and break ties on the graded work rather than on the last day's prices. A tie decided by a final-hour price move teaches exactly the lesson the rules were written to prevent.
Two workable defaults: the strategy essay score, or the completeness of the trade journal. Within a team, an odd number supplies its own tie-breaker (Economics Arkansas, 2018).
How do the rules connect to the grade?
Every rule should have exactly one matching line in the rubric — that is what makes the rules enforceable without grading anyone on luck. Georgia's council calls grading on portfolio value unfair, and instead groups assessment into four categories: Write (transaction rationales, strategy essays), Track (transaction logs, performance graphs), Analyze (investment plans, speculation versus investment, current events) and Report (company reports) (GCEE, 2019).
| Rule | Evidence you collect | GCEE category |
|---|---|---|
| Starting balance (identical) | Percentage-return calculation in the final report | Track |
| Eligible investments ($3 floor) | Trade journal entry naming the security and the reason | Write |
| One trading day per week | Dated transaction log with a rationale per trade | Track / Write |
| Margin and short selling off | Explanation of why leverage was excluded, in the strategy essay | Analyze |
| Teams of three | A single team rationale agreed before each trade | Write |
| Minimum holdings (3x3x3) | Portfolio audit showing three or more holdings across industries | Analyze |
Source: grading categories from Georgia Council on Economic Education, "Teaching the Game." Retrieved 2026-09-14.
For the full rubric — weightings, performance levels and how to score a reflection essay — see how to grade a stock market simulation.
For the 2026-27 school year
- Write the rule sheet as a one-page handout students sign. Rules kept in your head become arguments in week four.
- Name the standard the unit serves. The CEE and Jump$tart National Standards for Personal Financial Education (2021) organise personal finance into six topic areas with benchmarks at the end of grades 4, 8 and 12 (CEE & Jump$tart, 2021).
- Check your platform's execution rule. Real-time fills, next-open fills and delayed displays are all in circulation.
How Rapunzl handles this
Rapunzl's investing simulator is free, and each student gets a simulated $10,000 portfolio of stocks and crypto priced on live Nasdaq pricing, so the "which balance" and "which data" decisions are already made. The educator dashboard shows every student's portfolio and exports grades, which is what makes a process-based rubric practical to mark. Rapunzl's curriculum runs to 40 modules and 5 prebuilt courses for grades 6-12 in English and Spanish under a one-time perpetual licence; the simulator and Rapunzl's free National Scholarship Competition stay free either way.
Frequently Asked
Questions
Six: an identical starting balance, eligible investments with a minimum price, a fixed trading schedule, a margin and short-selling decision, a team structure, and a published tie-breaker.
No — SMG's rules bar buying or short selling stocks below $3 a share and Georgia uses the same floor, because cheap, volatile shares let a losing team swing the leaderboard on noise (SIFMA Foundation, 2019; GCEE, 2019).
In SMG they can short stocks but not bonds or mutual funds, and short positions are marked to market daily — but for a first-time class, switching short selling off is the safer default (SIFMA Foundation, 2019).
In SMG, yes: a $5-per-trade commission plus an SEC fee on sales, which stops students treating trades as free (SIFMA Foundation, 2019).
Three is the common recommendation — everyone stays involved and the odd number breaks the team's own ties — though one to five works (Economics Arkansas, 2018).
Grade the written rationale, the transaction log, the analysis and the final reflection; never grade the portfolio's value, which Georgia's council calls unfair because short-run returns are mostly luck (GCEE, 2019).
Nothing to the grade — the rubric scores documented reasoning, so a blown-up portfolio becomes post-mortem material, not a reason to reset.
No — a classroom stock market game uses virtual cash only, with no real money, no brokerage account and no personal financial information involved.
Set your rules, then run them for free
Once your rules are written, you need somewhere to enforce them. In Rapunzl, each student gets a simulated $10,000 stock-and-crypto portfolio on live Nasdaq pricing, and the educator dashboard handles class setup, monitoring and grade export. Request a free demo.
By Clarissa Collins, Curriculum Designer at Rapunzl, building standards-aligned financial literacy curriculum for grades 6-12.
More on this topic: Simulators & comparisons · How to grade a stock market simulation
References
- SIFMA Foundation, "The Stock Market Game" (program overview: $100,000 portfolio, grades 4-12, flexible timeline from several weeks to a full school year). https://www.stockmarketgame.org/ (retrieved 2026-09-14)
- SIFMA Foundation, "Rules of The Stock Market Game" (PDF: $5-per-trade commission plus SEC fee on sales; 7% annual interest on negative balances, 0.75% on positive balances; minimum 10 shares on buys and short sales; no buying or short selling below $3; bonds and mutual funds cannot be sold short; execution timing). https://www.stockmarketgame.org/document/SMG_Rules_Handout.pdf (retrieved 2026-09-14)
- SIFMA Foundation, "SMG Teachers Guide" (PDF: teams of three to five students). https://www.stockmarketgame.org/assets/documents/teachersguide.pdf (retrieved 2026-09-14)
- Georgia Council on Economic Education, "Teaching the Game" (3x3x3 rule; $3 price floor; grading categories; portfolio-value grading). https://www.gcee.org/post/teaching-game (retrieved 2026-09-14)
- Economics Arkansas / University of Central Arkansas (Marsha Masters), "The Stock Market Game in Ten Easy Steps!" (PDF, 2018: teams of 1-5, "3 is the ideal number"). https://uca.edu/acre/files/2020/07/Stock-Market-Game-10-Easy-Steps.pdf (retrieved 2026-09-14)
- U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, "Margin Account" (Investor.gov glossary). https://www.investor.gov/introduction-investing/investing-basics/glossary/margin-account (retrieved 2026-09-14) — cited as U.S. SEC, 2026a
- U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, "Stock Purchases and Sales: Long and Short" (Investor.gov). https://www.investor.gov/introduction-investing/investing-basics/how-stock-markets-work/stock-purchases-and-sales-long-and (retrieved 2026-09-14) — cited as U.S. SEC, 2026b
- Stock-Trak, "What are the trading hours and at what prices are trades executed at?" (real-time execution, approximately 15-minute delayed price display). https://www.stocktrak.com/faq/trading-hours-prices-trades-executed/ (retrieved 2026-09-14)
- Council for Economic Education & Jump$tart Coalition, "National Standards for Personal Financial Education" (2021: six topic areas, benchmarks at the end of grades 4, 8 and 12). https://www.councilforeconed.org/national-standards-for-personal-financial-education/ (retrieved 2026-09-14)
- Rapunzl (first-party product facts: free simulator, simulated $10,000 stock and crypto portfolios, live Nasdaq pricing, educator dashboard with grade export, 40 modules and 5 prebuilt courses, grades 6-12, English and Spanish, one-time perpetual licence, free National Scholarship Competition). https://rapunzl.com/simulator (retrieved 2026-09-14)
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