Last Updated on March 9, 2021 by Filip Poutintsev
At some point in your long hours of youtube and chill, you probably have come against this ad called: eToro. If you haven’t, that’s why you’re here and don’t worry, HPC got you covered.
Now, eToro sounds great, it’s a trading website that lets you invest in stocks by copying what others are doing. You can check what professional stock investors are doing and you could do the same, the same pattern or the same companies they invest in. Easy money right? But there’s more to that because if eToro was that great and simple as it sounds, everyone would be swimming in their stock-pile of money made from stocks.
Understanding the Stock Market Simulator
Stock Simulator: Simulators are so far one of the best creation science could probably offer for the stock players. A very common example of a simulator can be VR (virtual-reality) or something simpler, an artificial environment. Simulators are designed to create real conditions, just without you having to actually live it in your real life.
Even some video games like racings when you use an actual steering wheel is a simulator. Now, Simulator has an endless horizon, you could basically simulate anything with creativity so, some geniuses out there thought of creating a simulator for stocks where, you could invest virtual money and make virtual money thereby, having no risks of losing actual money that you possess. Such are Stock simulator.
How do I try a Stock Simulator?
Simulators sound like a fantasy, but its 2020 and technology has reached its peak than it ever has. You, in your palm, can hold lifetime access to virtual-everything; the internet. Of course, you need a mobile phone or a PC and there come internet bills.
Seriously, pay your internet bills. Nevertheless, there are countless apps to set different scenarios for you so that you could be out there investing in stocks. So, go download one and, give it a go.
Here we have the pros and cons of these stock simulators
Pros of the Stock Simulator
1. Stock Simulators are Free
These apps are designed to free for you to foresee, what to expect when you are investing in something. But of course, there are ads but those aside, you can easily download these simulators onto your phone and start biddings and buying non-existent virtual stocks.
2. No Age/Usage limit
Even if you are a big-time multimillionaire stock investor or some normal person looking to find a proper game because it takes you too long in the washroom, you could be in the simulator, investing and selling stocks and seeing how much profit you could make in the real world scenario. And since these apps work like games, and 14 years old or a 70 year old in their retirement years would be able to crack it and actually enjoy it.
3. No Risk of Losing Anything
One major advantage of using simulators in any scenario means you are not using any real-time resources. Stocks investments have huge risks, people could lose an immense amount of money if not done properly. Even if they do things right, there are always market risks with the rise and fall of many national or international companies you invest in.
But in a simulator, even if those risks happen and you lose some fraction of your virtual money, you aren’t harmed by any means in your real life. How cool is that? Now, you can foresee what investing in a real-life scenario could mean, how you could lose money and what not to do.
4. Makes You A Master in Playing Money
They say nothing teaches you like real life. No matter how many books you study, theories you observe, nothing beats you experiencing it at a personal level. No matter how much money you make or lose. It trains you up to the standard of experiencing things and always keeps you one step ahead when making any decision.
You could rediscover yourself and find new techniques to invest and sell your stocks as it is all about timings, when to buy and when to sell. Maybe you’re already a great big prodigy, maybe a diamond in the rough waiting to be the next stock master, why don’t you go out there and find yourself.
5. Leaves Room for the Next Big Development
Simulators have come a long way, from military-based training to every basic next thing we do. Instead of running everything on your head, you get more chances to run it in a big-time scenario. Assumptions can become reality.
Who knows if simulators can be so virtually used for stocks manipulation, what could be the next big thing? Maybe now, you could create your own simulator and sell stocks for it. Good luck!
But, are simulators that worthy? Here are some dismantling facts about simulators
Cons of Stock Simulator
1. Expectations and Reality
These simulators are created for a general audience and not only for you, so, if you feel these simulators going too easy for you or too hard for you, there is a chance of you derailing. Maybe you piled up the millions worth of stocks in the virtual games but now in real scenarios, things might be different. It is necessary to fail sometimes but, it’s important that you make good out of it.
2. Risky Strategies
Let’s say you pulled off an amazing seemingly impossible trade in the virtual world because; you simply had nothing to lose. Try that in real life and see bankruptcy papers on your doorstep when you don’t yield. These things require an insane amount of precision and years of experience to know the right place to put your money on. So, simulators don’t really train you for that.
3. Brokers
Now, that you are trained and have tested all of your theories and believe are ready to show off your skills and make some real money, there are these sneaky agents that make you false reports and false beliefs to mislead into investing in their profit rather than yours.
If you’re really interested, check out Jordan Belfort’s written “Wolf of wall street”, directed by Martin Scorsese. These agents are specifically trained to drain people into buying stocks. While there are some cases where people have made money but there are always risks of you losing yours.
4. Unseen Factors
If you’ve solved any equation in physics, you might have come across neglecting few things like air resistance, pressure, and sort. Here in simulators, lots of things are neglected and set aside just so that you could prosper. Evidence: maybe a big-time multinational company failing or having a medical lawsuit or a stock market crash. These might be huge factors but there are many other factors such as one’s risk tolerance, budget, objectives, and tax issues. Take that into consideration and simulators might look that fruitful at all.
Conclusions
Simulators are great, from designing real-like earthquakes to test buildings or flight simulators to test aircraft models and pilots but to compile it into such simple virtual world to test stock skills are truly innovative. Once you get a virtual hang of the stock environment, things are seemingly easier.
It’s like prepping for your final exam, a month before but, in a fun way of course. But, if you could be able to custom tailor these apps to your kind of environment, your own patch, you could gain more from these and outcomes might seem more precise.
So, there’s time and development for these stock simulators to train our future generations better. Meanwhile, what we have in our hands could never have been better.
Things are never predictable that’s why sometimes your gut feeling could be your greatest growth or your steepest downfall. Strong intuitions are needed everywhere and stocks are where your strategy and deepest analysis comes into play.
Once you see a growth of foresee something coming take chances, take risks, lose some, and earn some more. In the end, it is up to you to get in there and make money for yourself as some cha-ching and bling-bling could make your life surely merrier.
