Goal of the Game
Market Movers is a fictional turn-based stock market simulation. You start with $10,000 and trade across the Standard Securities Exchange. The market evolves through daily price action, sector sentiment, company news, public mood, options activity, short selling, and scheduled quarterly earnings reports.
The goal is simple: grow your portfolio while learning how market news, earnings surprises, sentiment, and risk interact.
All companies, prices, securities, and news stories are fictional. This is a game, not financial advice.
How the Screen Is Laid Out
Top BarShows the exchange name, current simulated date, market status, advance buttons, and the How to Play link.
Ticker TapeShows fast-moving stock prices and daily percentage changes.
Headline TapeShows recent news headlines in a scrolling wire beneath the ticker tape.
Left RailShows portfolio, indexes, largest stocks, earnings calendar, public sentiment, and import/export tools.
Center StageContains the quote card, search tools, candlestick chart, all listings table, order ticket, company fundamentals, holdings, and options book.
Right RailContains the full MM Newswire, best/worst performers, and universe notes.
Turns & Time
The game advances by simulated trading days. Weekends are skipped automatically.
| Button | Effect |
|---|
| Advance 1 Day | Runs one trading day and shows major, medium, and low news. |
| Advance 1 Week | Runs five trading days. Low news may be hidden, but still affects the market. |
| Advance 1 Month | Runs about 21 trading days. This is useful for long-term portfolio testing. |
Each turn updates stock prices, candlestick history, news, sentiment, earnings schedules, options expiry, holdings value, short liability, and portfolio equity.
Trading Shares & Shorts
Use the Order Ticket to select a stock, action, quantity, and execute an order.
- Buy Shares: purchases stock and reduces cash.
- Sell Shares: sells stock you already own and increases cash.
- Short Sell: borrows/sells shares, creating a short position. You gain if the stock falls.
- Cover Short: buys shares back to close a short position.
The portfolio panel tracks total equity, cash, day P/L, total P/L, and margin used.
Options
The game supports simplified call and put options.
- Buy Call Option: profits if the stock rises above the strike enough to overcome the premium.
- Buy Put Option: profits if the stock falls below the strike enough to overcome the premium.
- Sell to Close: closes an existing option position before expiry and credits the current option value to cash.
- Expiry: options automatically settle for intrinsic value when days to expiry reaches zero.
The Options Book shows symbol, type, contracts, strike, days remaining, premium, current value, P/L, and close controls.
News & Market Impact
The news engine creates market, sector, and company events. News is divided into three tiers:
| Tier | Meaning | Typical Impact |
|---|
| Major | Rare events such as policy shocks, geopolitical developments, large legal rulings, or systemic risk. | Can affect the whole market or multiple sectors for weeks or months. |
| Medium | Meaningful company or sector events such as guidance changes, cyber incidents, major contracts, labor disputes, or sector data. | Can move a company or sector for several days or weeks. |
| Low | Frequent smaller headlines such as analyst notes, local reports, minor contracts, shelf filings, traffic data, or small delays. | Usually short-lived but helps create daily volatility. |
News creates immediate price pressure and persistent shock memory. A headline can continue affecting a stock or sector after the first day, but the effect decays over time.
Quarterly Earnings
Every company has a scheduled quarterly earnings cycle. Earnings are based on company fundamentals, sector sentiment, public mood, prior results, and randomness.
- Earnings Calendar: shows upcoming reports.
- Company Fundamentals: shows revenue TTM, EPS TTM, net margin, guidance, last report, and next earnings.
- Earnings Detail: shows recent reports for the selected stock.
- Surprise matters: a company can grow but still fall if it misses expectations. A weak company can rise if expectations were too low.
Large earnings surprises can create company shocks, sector read-through, and visible MM Newswire stories.
Save, Export & Restore
The game auto-saves locally in your browser using local storage. This means your game persists on the same browser and device, but it is not stored on the webserver.
Export Universe
Use Export Universe to download a JSON file containing your current simulated market, holdings, prices, news, earnings history, and portfolio state.
Import Universe
Use Import Universe to restore a previously exported JSON universe file.
Reset
Use Reset to remove the current local save from your browser. Export first if you want to keep the universe.
Editing Companies & Tickers
The editable company pool is in server.js. Each listing follows this format:
["Company Name", "Industry", "TICKER"]
You can change company names, industries, and ticker symbols directly on the server. Keep the five sector keys unchanged:
Information TechnologyFinancialsCommunication ServicesConsumer DiscretionaryHealth Care
Company-pool edits affect new markets only. Existing saved games already contain their generated stock list.
Future Ad Slots
v0.3.2 includes hidden ad-ready containers in the UI, but no ad code is active yet. The intended future placements are:
- Top banner: below the headline tape and above the dashboard.
- Right rail: above the MM Newswire or between right-rail panels.
When ads are added later, keep them visually separate from controls and do not place them where players may accidentally click while trading or advancing turns.