Help Center
Guides, tutorials, and answers for PaperTrade Arena. Use the quick-nav below to jump to any topic.
Paper Trading Only — PaperTrade Arena is a simulated paper trading platform. No real money, no real brokerage execution, no real investment advice. All trades, balances, prices, and news are virtual and simulated.
Getting StartedPaper TradingVirtual WalletXP & RewardsCommunityAnalyticsData SourcesPricing & PlansFAQ
Getting Started
What is PaperTrade Arena?
PaperTrade Arena is a paper trading simulator designed for learning and skill-building. It replicates the experience of trading stocks and other securities using virtual money — with no real funds, no real brokerage account, and no real financial risk. It is not a real brokerage, investment adviser, or financial product.
How to Sign In (Demo Access)
Use the demo credentials to explore the full platform:
- Email: ani@xyz.com
- Password: demo123
Dashboard Tour
- Home page — portfolio summary, market overview, XP progress
- Nav drawer — hamburger menu (top-left) for all sections
- Ticker bar — live price ticker (15-min delayed via Yahoo Finance) across the top
- Header — quick search, notifications, wallet, profile
How to Search Stocks
Navigate to /stocks to search for any ticker symbol. Use the search bar in the header for quick symbol lookup from any page. Click a result to open the full stock detail page with simulated charts and order entry.
Placing Your First Paper Trade
- Sign in with demo credentials
- Go to /trade or click Trade from a stock page
- Select Buy or Sell, choose order type, enter quantity
- Review the simulated cost and click Submit Order
- View your fill in Trade History
Paper Trading Guide
What is Paper Trading?
Paper trading means placing simulated buy and sell orders with virtual money. Your trades execute against simulated prices — no real exchange order books, no real counterparties. It is a risk-free way to practice strategy, learn order mechanics, and build confidence before (or instead of) trading with real money.
Paper cash vs real money: Paper cash is virtual. It has no real monetary value and cannot be exchanged, withdrawn, or used to purchase anything outside this simulator.
Order Types
Market
Fills immediately at the current delayed price (Yahoo Finance, ~15 min delay).
Limit
Fills only at your specified price or better.
Stop
Triggers a market order when price reaches your stop.
Stop-Limit
Triggers a limit order at your stop price.
How Fills Work
Fills are simulated against the current delayed price feed (Yahoo Finance, ~15 min delay). Market orders fill instantly. Limit and stop orders are held open until the price crosses your trigger. Fills are not real exchange executions — slippage and depth-of-book are approximated.
Viewing Orders & History
- Open Orders — pending limit/stop orders
- Trade History — all fills and cancellations
- Portfolio — current positions and unrealized P&L
P&L Calculation
Unrealized P&L = (current delayed price − average cost) × quantity. Realized P&L is locked in on each sell. The portfolio dashboard shows both, plus total return percentage and daily change.
Portfolio Reset
If your paper cash balance reaches zero, or you want a fresh start, use the Portfolio Reset option in Portfolio settings. This returns your paper cash to the default $100,000 starting balance. Resets do not affect XP, level, badges, or trading history logs.
Options Chain
The Options Chain page displays real calls and puts sourced from Yahoo Finance in a side-by-side layout with the strike price column in the center — the standard options chain format. Use the expiry date selector at the top to switch between available expiry dates. Click any contract row to open the contract detail modal showing real implied volatility, bid/ask, volume, and open interest. Greeks are not available (Yahoo Finance does not provide them).
Virtual Wallet & Paper Cash
What is the Virtual Wallet?
The Virtual Wallet tracks your paper cash, game cash, and reward credits. It is accessible from the wallet icon in the header. All balances are virtual and exist only within PaperTrade Arena.
Paper Cash vs Game Cash
- Paper cash — your persistent casual balance, used outside of competitions
- Game cash — an isolated balance assigned at the start of each ranked competition; separate from paper cash
- Reward credits — earned through platform milestones; used for cosmetic unlocks
Daily Paper Cash Generation
Your account passively generates a small amount of paper cash each day based on your current level. Higher levels generate more. Plan tier applies a multiplier:
- Free: 1× base rate
- Starter: 1.25× base rate
- Pro: 1.5× base rate
- Elite: 2× base rate
Storage Cap & Claiming
Unclaimed daily paper cash accumulates up to a storage cap (cap days worth of generation). Cash beyond the cap expires — claim regularly using the Claim All button in your wallet to collect pending generation.
Wallet Hits Zero
If your paper cash balance reaches zero from trading losses, you can trigger a Portfolio Reset from Portfolio settings to return to $100,000. Your wallet balance is separate from your trading portfolio balance.
Virtual Currency Disclaimer: All paper cash, game cash, reward credits, and any virtual currency within PaperTrade Arena have no real monetary value. They cannot be withdrawn, transferred, sold, or redeemed for real money or goods under any circumstances.
XP, Levels & Rewards
How to Earn XP
XP is earned across 50+ event types. Key categories include:
- Trading: placing orders, fills, portfolio milestones
- Learning: completing lessons, passing quizzes, streaks
- Check-ins: daily login, streaks (3 / 7 / 14 / 30 days)
- Alerts: creating and triggering price alerts
- Community: posts, comments, reactions (with daily caps)
50-Level System
Progress from L1 Rookie to L50 Arena Legend. Each level requires more XP than the last. Level determines your daily paper cash generation rate and unlocks cosmetic rewards.
Daily Check-ins & Streaks
Log in each day to claim your daily check-in XP. Maintain consecutive days to build a streak. Bonus multipliers apply at streak milestones:
- 3-day streak: bonus XP
- 7-day streak: increased bonus
- 14-day streak: higher bonus
- 30-day streak: maximum streak bonus
Profile Frames
Cosmetic profile frames unlock automatically at level milestones: 1, 3, 5, 10, 20, 50. Apply them from your Profile settings. Frames are purely decorative and have no gameplay impact.
Badges
20 badges across trading, learning, community, and streak categories. Badges are awarded automatically when their unlock criteria are met. View earned and pending badges on your Profile page.
Plan Multipliers on Daily Generation
Free: 1×Starter: 1.25×Pro: 1.5×Elite: 2×
Multipliers apply to daily paper cash generation only, not to game cash or competition balances.
Virtual Rewards Disclaimer: XP, levels, badges, profile frames, and all virtual rewards have no real monetary value and cannot be redeemed for cash, goods, or services.
Community Guide
Community Feed
The Community Feed is a shared space for traders to share insights, trade reflections, and educational content. All content is user-generated.
Post Types
Six post types are supported:
- Trade Reflection — share a completed trade
- Market Analysis — charts and sector views
- Educational — lessons and explainers
- Question — ask the community
- Strategy — discuss an approach
- General — open discussion
Reactions & Comments
Five reaction types are available per post. Comment threads are supported. Self-reactions do not award XP, and duplicate reactions (same user, same post) do not award additional XP.
Social XP with Daily Caps
- Create post: 30 XP, max 90 XP/day
- Comment: 10 XP, max 100 XP/day
- React: 2 XP, max 40 XP/day
Reporting Content
Use the report button on any post or comment to flag content that violates community guidelines. Reports are reviewed by moderators. Reporting does not award XP.
Community posts are user-generated educational content and discussion. Nothing in the Community feed constitutes investment advice, financial guidance, or a recommendation to buy or sell any security.
Analytics Guide
Overview
The Analytics dashboard gives a comprehensive view of your activity across trading, learning, community, and progression. Use the time-range filter (7D / 30D / 90D / All) at the top to scope the data. Tabs at the top of the dashboard let you drill into specific areas: Trading, Paper Money, XP, Challenges, Learning, Community, Risk, and Performance — each with its own set of charts and metrics.
Overview Cards
9 key metrics at a glance: total trades, win rate, total XP, level progress, paper cash balance, current streak, lessons completed, posts made, and badges earned.
Trading Performance
Win/loss ratio, average gain/loss, best and worst trades, holding period analysis, and most-traded symbols.
Paper Money Analytics
Cash flow over time, daily generation tracking, claimed vs expired, portfolio value history.
XP Analytics
XP earned by category (trading, learning, community, check-ins), daily XP trends, event type breakdown.
Challenge Analytics
Competition history, game rankings, final standings, and game cash performance.
Learning Progress
Lessons completed, quiz scores, categories covered, completion rate by course.
Community / Social
Posts created, comments, reactions given/received, social XP earned.
Risk Analytics
Portfolio volatility, max drawdown, concentration by symbol and sector, beta exposure.
Weekly & Monthly Reports
Automated weekly and monthly performance summaries are generated and viewable within Analytics. Reports include P&L summary, XP milestone highlights, and top trades.
Data Sources
All prices, market data, and news in PaperTrade Arena are simulated. They do not reflect real market conditions. Do not make real investment decisions based on any data shown in this platform.
Delayed Market Data (Yahoo Finance)
All current prices and market data are sourced from Yahoo Finance via the yfinance library and are typically 15 minutes delayed. Prices are not real-time and must not be used for actual trading decisions.
Historical OHLCV Data
Historical candlestick/OHLCV data is fetched from Yahoo Finance via yfinance. It is not sourced from professional real-time providers (Polygon.io, Finnhub, Bloomberg, etc.) and may have gaps or inaccuracies.
News Content
All news articles displayed in PaperTrade Arena are pre-written mock content. They are not real news from financial publishers or wire services. No real market-moving events are reflected.
Future Real API Support
A planned future feature will allow users to optionally connect their own API keys for real market data (e.g. Polygon.io or Finnhub). This will be configurable at /settings/data-source. Users are responsible for their own API key usage and terms of service compliance with third-party providers.
Database (SQLite)
The demo and local development environment uses SQLite for persistence. SQLite is a local file-based database suitable for development and testing. PostgreSQL (or a production-grade equivalent) will be used in production deployments.
Appearance & Theme
Go to Settings → Theme to change your color scheme. Light, dark, and system-preference modes are supported. You can also select an accent color from the color swatches on that page — the chosen accent is applied to buttons, highlights, and interactive elements across the platform. Theme and accent preferences are saved to localStorage and persist across sessions.
Pricing & Plans
Plan Overview
PaperTrade Arena offers four plan tiers. All plans include full paper trading functionality. Higher plans unlock premium features and increase daily paper cash generation multipliers.
Free
- Full paper trading
- Community access
- Basic analytics
- 1× daily generation
- Core learning modules
Starter
- Everything in Free
- 1.25× daily generation
- Research reports
- Extended analytics
Pro
- Everything in Starter
- 1.5× daily generation
- AI Market Summary
- Backtesting engine
- Strategy Builder
Elite
- Everything in Pro
- 2× daily generation
- AI Trade Journal
- Priority support
- Early access features
Mock Billing
Billing and plan upgrades in the demo environment are simulated. No real charges are made. Paddle has been selected as the billing provider for production and will be integrated in a future release.
Ranked Game Fairness
Paid plan multipliers apply only to casual daily paper cash generation. In ranked trading competitions, all participants begin with the same equal game cash balance regardless of plan tier. This ensures competition fairness.
Disclaimers
Paper Trading Only
PaperTrade Arena does not execute real trades. It is not connected to any brokerage, exchange, or financial institution. No real securities are bought or sold.
No Investment Advice
Nothing on this platform — including community posts, analytics, AI summaries, or educational content — constitutes investment advice, a recommendation to buy or sell, or financial guidance of any kind.
Virtual Rewards Have No Cash Value
XP, levels, badges, profile frames, paper cash, game cash, and reward credits are virtual rewards with no real-world monetary value. They cannot be redeemed, transferred, or exchanged for real money or goods.
Simulated Results ≠ Real Returns
Performance in a paper trading simulator does not guarantee or predict future real investment results. Simulated fills differ from real market execution due to slippage, liquidity, commissions, and market impact.
Simulated Data Only
All prices, charts, OHLCV data, and news are simulated. They do not reflect real market conditions or real-time exchange data.
Educational Purpose
PaperTrade Arena is built for educational and entertainment purposes. It is not regulated as a financial services product and should not be relied upon for real financial decision-making.
Frequently Asked Questions
Still have questions? Ask the community or check the interactive demo.
PaperTrade Arena — Paper trading simulator only. No real funds at risk.