How this market matches, prices and ranks

Trading sessions

Sessions run back to back on Eastern Time: overnight 20:00–04:00, pre-market 04:00–09:30, regular 09:30–16:00, after-hours 16:00–20:00, seven days a week. Market makers and virtual traders vary their activity by session, so the regular session has the best liquidity.

Orders and matching

• Players place limit orders. Orders in a stock match by price then time priority, one command at a time, so results are deterministic and replayable.
• Each player holds one net position per stock: while long, a sell closes the long first and then opens a short; while short, a buy covers first and then goes long.
• Placing an order holds the City Coin or shares involved; cancelling or filling releases them. Every movement is written to an auditable ledger.
• Halts, price bands and other protections apply to every participant alike, verified traders included.

Price discovery

The last price comes only from actual trades; quotes and synthetic data never overwrite it. Market makers quote both sides and adjust spreads to inventory and risk; virtual traders follow their own strategies; institutions revalue companies on city news and trade accordingly. Market-making capital, institutional funds and virtual traders' money are all finite and observable, with no bottomless funds.

Shorting and margin

• Shorting requires borrowing shares first. Each stock has a borrow pool; the borrow rate is annualized and settled daily, and the tighter the pool, the higher the rate.
• Opening a short requires initial margin, and holding it requires maintenance margin. If account equity falls below maintenance, shorts are covered automatically, without further notice.
• On a lender's recall, a delisting or an IPO settlement, affected shorts are covered or cash-settled by the rules.

Margin mode

• Off by default; you turn it on and confirm on your account page.
• When on, you can buy beyond your available City Coin and the city lends the difference, at a 60% initial margin rate, so roughly 1.67× at most.
• Margin loans accrue 6% a year, charged daily from the account. When equity falls below maintenance (50% for longs), the system sells the largest long first to repay, then covers shorts.
• It can't be turned off while a loan is outstanding.

Securities Lending

Once enrolled in lending, up to 30% of your unheld shares enter the borrow pool when the rate reaches the threshold, keeping at least 10 shares per stock. At daily settlement, borrow fees go first to player lenders pro rata, with the remainder to the platform pool. You can leave any time: nothing new is lent, and shares already out come back under the recall rules.

IPOs

Before a company lists, its offer price, share count and subscription deadline are announced. Subscriptions use your own City Coin only; margin can't be used for IPOs. After the deadline, shares are allocated and settled by the rules, and unallocated City Coin is returned.

Seasons and ranking

• Seasons are created by the operators with published start and end times; while one runs, every normal account is entered and admin accounts sit out.
• Equity is recorded hourly for every account. After 8 hourly records you receive a rank.
• Ranking uses the consistency score = season return ÷ hourly equity volatility. A negative return gives a negative score. Accounts with margin on are marked on the board.
• The public board shows the top 50; everyone sees their own rank or sampling progress on their page.

Lifestyle

Total wealth = trading equity + lifestyle asset value. Wealth level is set by your peak total wealth and never falls. Assets unlock by level within each category, and some rare ones are limited editions. Valuations follow the city's rules, and buybacks settle at current value.

Fairness and review

Trading between your own accounts, scripted trading, and exploiting bugs to gain City Coin or move prices are abuse; how it's handled is in theTerms of Service. Unusual trading may be reviewed, and related City Coin or results may be frozen during review. Questions go through Feedback.