The base game
Real companies become collectible monster cards. Buy shares, build a portfolio, and watch it move at the actual pace of the real stock market.
Who's playing
Grown-up
🧭Market Advisor
Signs in first, creates the family, sets each trader's starting cash, and adds a trader profile for every kid playing.
Kid
👾Trader
Gets a monster avatar, starting cash, and their own portfolio. Scans company cards, decides what to buy or sell, and checks back to see how their picks are doing.
Setup
The collection
Every real company in the game — from mega-cap giants to scrappy startups — is a Company card. Right now, Company cards are the only card type that's active here; sabotage-and-support cards live in the separate Market Flash mode.
Reading a card
Every stat on a Company card is pulled from a real number about the company — nothing is made up for the game.
Alphabet
$319.74▲ 0.65%
⚡Power
How big the company is — taken directly from its market cap.
🎯Popularity
Tends to track Power — bigger companies are usually more widely known and owned.
🏃Speed
How jumpy the price is day to day. High Speed = bigger swings.
🛡️Stability
The flip side of Speed — steady movers are rarely also fast movers.
💰Dividend
"High" once a company pays 2%+ of its share price a year in cash; everything else — including 0% — is "Low."
Evolutionary stage & rarity — the same idea, two labels
Common/Startup is small and speculative; Mythical/Mega-cap is huge and established. Neither guarantees future growth — a startup can grow fast, and a giant can still fall.
Playing the market
Trading is simple on purpose: type a whole number of shares, and the app does the math.
| You have | What it does for you |
|---|---|
| Cash balance | Your uninvested dollars — what's left to spend on new shares. |
| Holdings | Shares you already own, shown with their current value. |
| Portfolio page | Every holding plus your total net worth over time, charted. |
Strategy
There's no single "right" portfolio — most investors mix both styles on purpose.
📈 Growth style
Pick companies that pay little or no dividend and pour their profit back into growing instead — usually higher Speed, lower Stability.
🏦 Income style
Pick steady, established companies with a High dividend, and collect that cash regularly — usually calmer, higher-Stability picks.
Reality check
StockMonsters tracks real exchanges, so it keeps their real hours: 9:30am–4:00pm Eastern, Monday through Friday. Outside that window a price just holds at wherever it last closed. Prices refresh regularly while the market's open, so gains and losses track what's really happening.
Before you start
Every trader picks a monster avatar, loosely themed to a market sector — just for flair, it doesn't change how trading works.
Giga-Volt
Crude-Kraken
Coin-Cobra
Hype-Hound
Vax-Viper