Virtual Stock Market Game

Yalicoo is the only stock trading simulation where you can trade and view all investors' portfolios LIVE. All stock quotes and portfolios update in real time and you can monitor the other players' trades. You can win cash prizes for creating a winning virtual portfolio. You can watch the portfolios of all traders, learn from their winning strategies and benefit from their expertise and research. Yalicoo is about fun and competition. Improve your trading skills or prove just what a star trader you are!

Want to know more about Yalicoo? Read Yalicoo tutorial.

2. What’s unique about Yalicoo?

Yalicoo is the ONLY place on the net where you can watch all the other traders' real time portfolios and follow every trade they make, trade virtually with real time quotes and win cash prizes for creating a winning high yield virtual portfolio.

3. What kind of games do you have?

Currently, we have 4 types of games: daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly competitions. In each game you chose to play, you’ll get an initial amount of $100,000 to build and manage your own portfolio. All your trades are executed in real time without any delays. The winners in each game are the players with the highest account value (highest yield), i.e. the ones with the most profitable portfolios at the end of the game.
The daily game can be played every trading day of the week. The winners are the players with the highest account value at the end of the day. The weekly game is played for an entire week, and the monthly game is played for an entire month. The winners are the ones with the highest returns at the end of the game period.

4. Who can play? Do I need any preliminary experience?

Any person above the age of 18 can join Yalicoo’s games. Besides that, playing in the games doesn’t require any preliminary experience in the stock market, thus allowing anyone to play. You can join any game you like, and learn how to trade the market by watching other players' moves.

In addition, basic information that can assist you to feel more confident about your trades can be found on our educational section and in the glossary.

5. Is real money involved in the trades?

Remember that Yalicoo is a simulator, not a real brokerage account. Therefore, the trades and their subsequent commissions are virtual and don't involve real money.

6. Can I win prizes playing Yalicoo’s games?

The 3 leading players on each game win cash prizes. If a larger number of players have the same yield, the prizes are distributed evenly among them. The prizes are awarded at the end of the game. In addition, the top 10% ranked players at the end of the game (excluding the cash prize winners) win a free additional game (see the Rules for further details).

7. Who are the people behind Yalicoo?

Check out the About Us page for details about the people behind Yalicoo.

8. Who supervises the games and the winnings?

The Yalicoo Team will review and audit all winning portfolios and validate accuracy of the winners' details.

9. What does the word “Yalicoo” means?

Yalicoo is named after Ya'el Yardeni whose father nicked name her YALICOO. She was killed in a tragic car accident. Yalicoo was a beautiful 16 year old girl with a great heart and soul when she was taken from all of us. This web-site is dedicated to her memory. 1% of our profits are donated to organizations that support the fight against car accidents.

Getting Started

1. How to start?

Playing Yalicoo is very easy. Just go to the home page, and chose the game you'd like to join from the variety of games we offer. Then, you’ll have to fill a brief registration form and pay a small subscription payment. That’s it, now you’re in the game!

Next, you can start building and managing your portfolio – buy or sell stocks as you like (see the trading rules for further details). You can watch other player’s moves; ask the other players for advice on the message board and you can consult the Y Academy, our educational section.
If you are not happy with your portfolios' performance, you can press RESET (located in the portfolio header section). You may press RESET once per game. If you are still not happy with your performance, you may QUIT the game and rejoin it. The QUIT button is located at the bottom of the Rules page.

2. Can I join any game I want?

You can join any game you like. Playing in more than one game can increase your ability to practice and learn new strategies, as well as increase your chances of winning. You can even join the same game with another strategy—just create another user name with your same email address.

3. Where can I learn about investing basics and techniques?

In the Y Academy, our educational section, you’ll find all you need. It includes explanations for beginners through advanced investors, enhanced glossary and other materials that will guide your way.

Login & Registration

1. Is registration required?

Joining your first free game requires a short registration. After this quick procedure you can start playing.

2. Is my account secure?

YES. Your account is highly secured according to the highest standards in the industry. All your personal details are kept confidential (data is encrypted and can only be viewed by you) and will never be shown to any third party. Therefore, you can feel confident to choose to save your personal and credit card details on the system for future games.

3. Can anyone view my portfolio?

One of the unique ideas behind Yalicoo is the ability to learn from other players’ trades and techniques. Therefore, your portfolio can be viewed only by the other players which are signed up for the same competition. They can view the stocks you own and your account value and history with a 5 minutes delay. Other site visitors cannot watch your current holdings. No one can view your pending (future) trades.

4. Can I update my account details in the future?

Yes. You can see and modify your personal details any time you like.

5. When can I access my account?

You can access your account every time you want 24X7. During trading hours you can trade in real time quotes, and after trading hours you can submit pending orders which will be executed when the markets open again.

6. What are credit points and how can they be used?

Credit points that you received can be used to join an additional competition according to their value. The competitions require the following credit points: Daily: 4 credits; Weekly: 8 credits; Monthly: 12 credits; Quarterly: 20 credits.

7. Which competitions can I join with my free credits?

You can use your free credits to join the daily, weekly or the monthly competitions.

Rules & Trading issues

1. When does a game begin and when does it end?

Daily game: Each daily game begins when the market opens, and ends on the same day when the market closes. For example, the Tuesday daily game begins on Tuesday morning 9:30 AM, and ends on the same day at 16:00.
Weekly game: Each weekly game begins on Monday when the market opens, and ends 5 days later on Friday when the market closes.
Monthly game: Each monthly game begins on the first trading day of the current month, and ends on the last trading day of the same month when the market closes.
Quarterly game: lasts for 3 months, based on 4 quarters: January to March, April to June, July-September and October to December.

2. Can I join a competition after it started?

Yes, you can join a competition until 10 minutes before it ends. If you are not happy with your portfolios' performance, you can press RESET (located in the portfolio header section). You may press RESET once per game. If you are still not happy with your performance, you may QUIT the game and rejoin it. The QUIT button is located at the bottom of the Rules page.

3. How are the winners determined?

At the end of the game, the players' trades are verified to check for trading inconsistencies and/or accidental errors. Then, the 3 players with the highest yield are awarded the prizes. If a larger number of players have the same yield, the prizes are distributed evenly between them. In addition, the top 10% of players, excluding the top 3 cash prize winners, are also determined and given a free additional game. In simple words, it means that if you didn't win a cash prize but your portfolio returns ranked in the top 10% on the players' list, you'll get a free game! See our Prize Policy tab for more details.

4. Which securities can be traded?

In order to minimize trading manipulations, only large liquid companies with a market cap above $600M and average daily trading volume above 150,000 can be traded. Additional securities from other exchanges around the world will be available for trading in the near future.

5. How are trades performed?

All orders submitted during trading hours are executed with real time quotes and zero delays. Orders submitted after trading hours are considered pending orders and will be executed immediately when the market reopens again.

6. What kind of orders do you support?

We support market, limit and stop orders at this time.

7. What’s the maximum number of transactions?

The number of transactions is unlimited, but your virtual portfolio will be (virtually) charged a $5 commission on each executed trade.

8. How long does it take to process an order from the time it is placed?

During market hours, orders are executed upon arrival to our servers and executed instantaneously. Orders are executed in the order received. Yalicoo's system is designed to perform under substantial loads, but as with any system, at extreme load orders may be delayed. After trading hours, the orders you submit will be pending orders and will be executed immediately when the market reopens.

9. How many stocks can I buy?

Each game has its own rules, so please read the game rules before joining the game. Usually, there are no limits on the number of stocks that can be owned in your portfolio. Please note that most games have a diversification limit, meaning that the holding of one stock cannot exceed a certain percent of your portfolio's total value. Please check the rules section in each competition for the diversification limit in your competition.

10. Can I buy or sell stocks whenever I like?

Yes, you can buy or sell which ever stocks you like, whenever you want (see the competition rules for further details).

11. Are dividends and stock splits added to my account?

Dividends are excess profits that the company chooses to pay its shareholders. Each one gets a share from the total dividend proportional to its holding. Dividends are added to your account on the Ex-Date, which is the payment day.
in case of a split, which means that the number of shares increased and the stock price is been decrease in the same amount to keep a constant value of the company market cap, the number of shares you own will be automatically updated in your account to reflect the split, so the total value of this stock in your portfolio will stay the same.

12. Why is there a limited number of companies that can be traded in Yalicoo?

Although we want Yalicoo to be as close as possible to real trading, remember that Yalicoo is an educational simulator. Therefore, we choose to include only the largest companies in the market. For example, we chose the largest 750 companies in the NASDAQ, which have market cap above 600 million dollars and average daily volume greater than 150,000. These stocks are more likely to be held by most investors and are less volatile than smaller ones, allowing our users to demonstrate high returns with low risk levels. Other small companies might be good investments, but are more risky and volatile.

13. How can I make a trade?

You can see a detailed explanation in the Y Academy info center under the topic “How to trade stocks?”.

14. What are pending orders?

Every order that has not been executed yet is a pending order. Examples for pending orders are an order that was made after the trading hours or a limit order that can not be executed due to price limitations. Our system continuously tries to execute the pending orders during market hours.

15. What is the cumulative score?

At the end of every competition that you join you receive a score from 1 to 10 depending on your position among all participants. The points are calculated according to the following table:

Top 10% - 10 points
10%-20% - 7 points
20%-30% - 5 points
30%-40% - 3 points
40% - 50% - 2 points
Below 50% – 1 point

The cumulative score is the average of all the points you received over time. This can help you assess your own performance, as well as help you identify the top performers among all the players in Yalicoo, so you can learn from the best.

16. What is a partial execution and how does is work?

An order that you submit can be partially executed in case the order exceeds the amount of cash available in your account or in case it exceeds the diversification limit (which limits the holding of one stock to 10% from the total account value). The system will ask for your permission to execute the order partially.

Rankings

1. How often are game player rankings updated?

The rankings of all portfolios are updated continuously in real time, every single second.

2. Can I see the player rankings while not subscribed to a game?

In order to view the current ranking of a player, you have to subscribe to at least one of the games. On the Yalicoo.com home page, you can see the portfolio performance of the top 3 ranked players in select competitions.

Payment issues

1. How do you secure the payment system?

The payment system is highly secured by a 128 bit SSL certificate issued by VeriSign. Personal data, including payment information, are encrypted in the database. Your payment information is not visible even to our support team. We adhere to SAS 70 Security auditing, making our premises some of the most secure in the world.

2. Do you keep my credit card number?

NO. Your privacy and security are very important to us; thus your credit card details are not kept on the system at all, and are just used for processing your subscription in a game.

3. What payment types do you support?

You can chose to pay the competition fee using your PayPal account, or with Visa, MasterCard or American express credit cards.

4. How are winners get paid?

We pay the cash prize to the winners via PayPal. We can credit your PayPal account, or we can transfer money to your bank account via PayPal. We currently do not offer additional payment options for cash prize pay outs. You may also elect to receive your prize money in Yalicoo credits.

5. I won one of the competitions in Yalicoo. How do I receive the prize?

Congratulation! An automated email regarding your winning will be sent to you within the next 48 hours with details about the prize amount and the payment details. Payments are processed once a week and the cash awarded will show up in your PayPal account.

6. I invited a friend to join Yalicoo. When will I reward the free games?

Yalicoo awards you with 4 FREE games of your choice for each friend that was referred by you and joined a non-free game.

Feedback & Contact us

1. I have additional questions. Where can I find the answer?

Try looking for the answer in the other topics on the FAQ page. If the question is related to Yalicoo’s games, you’ll probably find the answer in the Terms of use or the Game rules. If it’s related to investing ideas, try checking our educational section.

2. I have a great idea for a new game. Who can I contact?

We like to hear your new ideas. Please contact our team and let them know what you have to say.

3. Can I publish my own thoughts and conclusions on the site?

In the near future we’ll create a special place on the site for your written materials.

4. Where can I report a bug or a problem in the system?

Please contact our technical people and we’ll review the issue as soon as possible.

5. What's the best way to contact us?

You can contact us by Email or chat with us during chat hours.

Support issues

1. Which browsers does Yalicoo support?

Yalicoo currently fully supports Internet Explorer versions 7 and 6. Yalicoo currently doesn't have full support in FireFox. Thus, if you have older versions of Internet Explorer or encounter any problem using FireFox, please try using Internet Explorer version 7.

2. What are the competition fees?

Yalicoo has a verity of competitions - daily, weekly, monthly and quarterly competition. Each competition has a different entrance fee which can be seen in the registration page of the competition.

3. Why didn't my order execute?

A Buy order will not executed for several reasons:
1. If you have exceeded the diversification limit, e.g., if the diversification limit is 10% of your account total value, then your order cannot exceed $10,000 if your account total value is $100,000 or lower.
2. If the order amount exceeds the cash balance in your account.

A Sell order will not be executed if you traded this stock during the last 5 minutes.

Also, an order cannot be executed if the quote is not available for this stock. Please allow a few minutes for the quotes to be updated in our system. This may happen due to data error feeds from our data providers.

4. Why didn't my pending order execute?

A pending order will not be executed if its execution leads to a position (holding) that is higher than the diversification limit on a stock. In this case, you may cancel the order and re-submit it. For example, with a 10% diversification limit, if your account total value is $100,000 and you request a pending market order for the next day to buy 10,000 shares of a stock currently prices at $1 (i.e. $10,000), the order will not be executed if the stock is traded at $1.1. It will be executed only after the price decrease back to $1 or lower.

5. I have difficulties login into my account. Why is that?

There could be several reasons:
1. In case "username or password incorrect", please check that you typed the correct user name and password (verify that the CAPS-LOCK is released). If you forgot your password please click on the "forgot password" link.
2. In case "Account non-activated", please mail to webmaster@yalicoo.com using the subject "activate my account", your account will automatically be activated in a couple of hours by our system.
3. In case "You have been locked out", please contact our support team.

5. I have difficulties trading stocks in Yalicoo. What could be the reason for that?

There could be several reasons:
1. Yalicoo currently fully supports Internet Explorer versions 7 and 6. Yalicoo currently doesn't have full support in FireFox. Thus, if you have older versions of Internet Explorer or encounter any problem using FireFox, please try using Internet Explorer version 7.
2. Several anti virus programs, such as Kasparvsky, tend to block some of the functionality of Yalicoo's system. In this case, try to defined www.yalicoo.com as a safe site in your anti virus settings.

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