Competition
Four skills.
One evolving market.
Judges look for more than portfolio returns. Explore how they assess your analysis of unequal information, trading decisions, peer-to-peer communication, and response to a changing market.
Analyze information asymmetry.
Judges will look for how you interpret incomplete information and recognize what you know that others may not—and what they may know that you do not. Strong analysis weighs the reliability of each source, distinguishes useful signals from noise, and builds a clear investment thesis without treating uncertainty as fact.
Trade with a clear purpose.
Judges will look for a clear connection between your analysis and your trades: why you entered or exited a position, how you sized it, and how you managed risk. Be ready to explain your timing and decisions. The reasoning behind your portfolio matters, not just its final value.
Communicate with peers.
Judges will look for purposeful, professional peer-to-peer communication: asking useful questions, exchanging information strategically, testing competing viewpoints, and making a persuasive case for your own. Show how conversations influenced your analysis and decisions. Clear reasoning, thoughtful listening, and the quality of your interactions matter more than simply speaking the most.
Adapt to the market.
Judges will look for how you respond to new headlines, price movements, and information from other competitors. Recognize when the evidence challenges your original view, reassess your assumptions, and adjust your positions or risk accordingly. Explain why you changed your strategy—or why the evidence justified staying with it.
Why MockStock?
Where markets
meet diplomacy.
Traditional stock market simulations primarily reward portfolio performance. Model United Nations primarily rewards diplomacy and communication. MockStock combines both worlds.
Competitors must analyze markets, process incomplete information, communicate strategically, manage risk, and defend their decisions in a realistic financial environment.
Every participant leaves having experienced what it feels like to operate in a dynamic market where information, analysis, and judgment all matter.
MockStock is not simply about predicting which stocks will rise. It is about learning how financial markets process information—and how great investors make decisions when certainty does not exist.
The competition day Six stages. One continuous market.
Opening Session
Participants arrive, register, attend opening remarks, and hear from guest speakers before receiving the official competition briefing.
Research Period
Before trading begins, every competitor receives their confidential information packet.
Participants are given dedicated time to:
- Study their information
- Analyze companies
- Develop investment ideas
- Prepare an initial strategy
This allows every competitor to begin the market with an informed plan.
Market Open
Once the market opens, participants have access to the trading platform.
From this point until market close, competitors are free to:
- Buy and sell securities
- Analyze companies
- Monitor The Wire
- Speak with other competitors
- Exchange information
- Submit articles for publication
- Adapt their investment strategy
There are no separate “rounds.” Instead, the market evolves continuously throughout the day as new information becomes available.
Market Close
Trading concludes near the end of the competition.
Portfolio performance is finalized.
Hedge Fund Report
Following market close, every participant prepares a professional hedge-fund-style report explaining:
- Their investment strategy
- Their major trades
- Their use of information
- Their risk management
- Their reasoning throughout the competition
The report is intended to demonstrate not only what decisions competitors made, but why they made them.
Awards Ceremony
Following judging and final calculations, awards are presented to recognize outstanding performance across multiple aspects of the competition.
The event concludes with a discussion of the day’s major market events and the reasoning behind them, allowing competitors to compare strategies and learn from one another.
Our participating institutions New York City
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Selected: Bard, New York City.