Hey guys! This week I wanted to share something with you that I think is worth knowing, especially if you’re just starting out and want to build up confidence.

If you’ve been paying attention to the local stock market recently then you’ve no doubt heard all the good things that have been happening there. Maybe you’ve also heard about or know someone who has benefitted from the gains made by popular listings like Wigton recently.

You kind of understand that you need to invest your money in order to see any real growth, but you still aren’t quite comfortable with it. After all, you know that with stocks, there are no guarantees. You want to learn but don’t want to lose your money.

Well, the Jamaica Stock Exchange (JSE) has a tool that’s perfect for you. It is the JSE Public Stock Market Game.

Now, before I start telling you about this, I must warn that this game is no substitute for a licensed financial advisor. While this game is educational and does a good job of having people experience the stock market, you should still always seek the advice and support of a licensed financial advisor or broker when it comes to your real trades.

Now that I have made that clear, let me get into explaining the JSE’s game.

The JSE created a stock trading game which uses virtual money and is based on real market data (both companies and actual trades) that ANYONE (this means you) can participate in.

In simple terms? They’re giving you $100,000 worth of virtual money to trade in a game with.

The real kicker is, this game is a mirror of the actual market. The stock movements allowed in the game each day are based upon the movements that happened in the real stock market earlier the same day. The real stock market closes at 1 pm each weekday and the JSE Public Stock Market Game opens 30 minutes later at 1:30 pm. It stays open until 12:00 am (midnight). You are limited in what and how many shares you can buy/sell during that “pretend” trading day.

The limit is based on whatever the total real-world trades for those stocks were on that day.

Feeling a bit lost? Let me give an example to make it clearer:

If during the real trading day today, 700,000 units of Wisynco shares were traded, then between 1.30pm and midnight, when the JSE Stock Market Game is open, a player would only be able to trade (buy or sell) 700,000 units of Wisynco shares.

If a stock did not trade during the real trading day, then a player cannot buy or sell it during the JSE game session for that day.

Prices are also based on the real trades that happened during the real trading day. The closing price of a stock at the end of the day is what is used as the buy/sell price in the game each day.

Using the Wisynco example again, if the closing price of one unit of Wisynco’s stock at the end of the real trading day was $23.11, then during the JSE game session for that day, buying or selling Wisynco stock, would be priced at $23.11 per unit. Just like on the real stock market, trades have a minimum of 100 shares.

So, this is a chance to allow you to try your hand at investing on the Jamaica Stock Exchange without risking any of your hard-earned money! Perfect right?

Even better, the JSE makes it into a competition (though you do not have to compete, you can simply play to learn on your own).

The JSE does give prizes though and anyone who grows the virtual $100,000 the most, wins real money! Last year the first place winner collected $100,000 in real money for growing his portfolio 2,500 per cent.

There are also prizes for 2nd and 3rd place but as I said, competing is optional.

Many people play each year simply to test out their skills or just to gain a better understanding of how the stock market works. The game is not set up to have you interact with any other player except for viewing the leaderboard, so you are able to concentrate simply on your own picks and portfolio and not have to worry about anyone else.

You also don’t need anyone else to trade with. Trades are automatically done with the system (up to a max of whatever the total traded volume for that stock was that day).

So, how do you get started? Well, step one is to go to the Jamaica Stock Exchange’s website and sign up for the Game. Register a new account by clicking the link at the top of the page and signing up.

After you’ve registered, click the “MyJSE” link at the top of the main page then click “Stock Market Game”. You will see a list of games there, the one you should join is at the top (Jamaica Stock Exchange Public Game 2019/2020) but make sure to also review the rules that are linked on that page. They go into a lot more detail than I did here. Once you join a game you will see the leaderboard of all the people playing.

This is your chance to get your feet wet, trading stocks on the JSE without risking any real money. You might not win the whole game, but you’ll certainly be more familiar with trading to test your skills after this game ends.

Get ready to start thinking, “Wow, I should’ve done this with real money”. It’s a great way to build up confidence (or avoid being financially burned via inexperience).

Now let’s get trading and make some virtual (and hopefully real) money!!

Randy T. Rowe is a corporate strategy consultant and self-taught investor. He is not a financial advisor. You can find him on Twitter (@RTRowe) and on his personal finance website www.everymickle.com. He played the JSE Stock Market Game in 2018 with two portfolios and grew them both from $100,000 to $305,997 and $309,845 respectively. He is trying to do the same thing this year, but with real money. He’s keeping his fingers crossed but that makes typing a bit diffickdf.