i have a new game

Beginners (sic) Game for Investing

Yes, I know. Somewhere in Texas is a missing apostrophe. Anyway.

Last night I signed up for my own portfolio with MarketWatch's Virtual Stock Exchange, a fabulous way to (virtually) dive headfirst into the wonderful world of day trading. There's no membership fee: you simply create an account and choose a "game" to join. A game is a participant grouping with specified rules (e.g., starting cash of $100k, $10 commission per trade, etc.) and which may or may not have a target demographic such as "students who are currently in college and are interested in learning about investments and the stock market".

Noob that I am, I signed up with the game mentioned above and promptly bought $10k each of eight stocks that I've been eyeing. The games mirror real-life stock market vicissitudes; in the past 24 hours my portfolio has devalued -0.55%, and I am currently ranked 5268 (of 7728). I don't think it's too shabby for a first day. Dollarwise my biggest loser was Palm Inc (PALM), Biovail Corp (BVF) gained the most, and Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. (WMT) was flat. I've since placed two new orders: Allegheny Technologies Inc (ATI) and Nvidia Corp (NVDA).