How the city works, explained

How the city works

• What is MockTradeCity?A fictional stock market whose prices come from its own participants, with no real money involved.
• City Coin and your account balanceWhere CC comes from, why some of it is reserved, and how it connects to account equity.
• The four trading sessionsHow the city's Eastern Time schedule affects activity, order eligibility and displayed price changes.

Orders and fills

• The Order book and matchingHow bids and asks become executions, and why one order can produce several trades.
• Limit orders and Market ordersThe difference between setting a price boundary and immediately taking available liquidity.
• Time in forceWhat Day, GTC and IOC do with the part of an order that has not filled.
• IPO subscriptionsHow a fixed-price offering reserves CC, allocates shares and refunds the unused amount.

Reading the tape

• Reading a company quoteWhat the price, range and activity figures measure, and which session each one describes.
• How price change is calculatedThe same price can produce different percentages when the reference point changes.
• Volume and turnoverOne counts shares, the other counts CC, and neither tells you which way a price must move.
• Candles, intraday lines and indicatorsDifferent ways to summarize the same trading history, with the session and interval kept in view.
• The City CompositeA float-weighted view of the city's listed companies, expressed in points rather than tradable shares.
• Daily range and price swingsHow far a price traveled within a session is a different question from where it finished.
• News and fair valueHow fictional events enter the simulation without directly rewriting traded prices.
• Sectors and rotationHow related companies are grouped, and why the same event can affect groups differently.
• Reading Daily WrapFollow the day's market character, breadth and activity, then check the tables behind the story.

Leverage and risk

• Short selling: borrow, collateral and coveringWhat happens when a sale goes beyond your long position and creates an obligation to return shares.
• Margin: borrowing City CoinHow financing changes buying power, creates interest and adds an account Maintenance line.
• Price bands and trading haltsHow a rolling reference constrains executions, and what triggers the city's temporary LULD pause.
• The securities lending programOffering shares, having them borrowed and receiving settled income are three different stages.

Who's in the city

• Virtual investors and market makersThe participants behind the city's orders have different strategies, finite resources and shared execution rules.
• Ownership disclosure and major holdersWhat the holder list reveals, how its thresholds work and why it is deliberately delayed.
• Seasons and the leaderboardWhy the leaderboard uses observations and a stability score instead of simply sorting account balances.
• Lifestyle: wealth levels and your showroomHow fictional possessions contribute to total wealth while remaining separate from trading collateral and performance.

Want to just start?

If you haven't signed up yet, the Getting started walks you through your first trade; the exact parameters are in the Market rules. After each close, the Daily Wrap explains these ideas again with that day's real numbers.