Terms and contest rules

Simulated money, not investment advice

Everything in the Market Lab uses simulated money. No real securities are bought or sold, and you can't win or lose real money by trading. The simulator, lessons, information sessions and guest talks are for education. None of it is investment, financial, legal or tax advice, and none of it recommends buying or selling anything. How well you do in the simulation doesn't predict how real investing would go for you.

Who runs it

Luban, a youth-led nonprofit in Canada, organizes the competition. Entry is free, and you don't have to buy anything to take part or to win.

Who can enter

The competition is open to students currently enrolled in high school or university. Registration closes September 30, 2026.

You can enter alone or as a team of two to four people. Only one team member needs to register. We may match individuals and incomplete teams with each other. Each person can have one account and belong to one team. People who help run the competition can take part, but they can't win prizes.

How the simulation works

The simulation runs from October 1 to November 1, 2026. Every team, including solo entrants, starts with the same amount of simulated cash.

Trades use prices from a third-party market data feed. Those prices can be delayed, and now and then they're wrong or missing. If a data error or a software bug produces a trade that couldn't have happened in a real market, we may correct or reverse it.

Winning and prizes

Teams are ranked by total portfolio value, meaning cash plus the market value of holdings, as recorded by the Market Lab when the simulation closes on November 1, 2026. Prizes are in Canadian dollars:

• First place: $500
• Second place: $200
• Third place: $100

Each prize is split evenly among the members of the winning team. If teams tie, we add up the prizes for the places they share and split that total evenly between them.

After the simulation closes we'll announce the results and email the winning teams to arrange payment. A winner who doesn't reply within 14 days of that email may lose their share, and we may award it to the next team in the rankings. Prizes can't be transferred or swapped for something else.

Fair play

You can't:

• create more than one account or join more than one team;
• let anyone else use your account;
• place orders with scripts, bots or other automated tools;
• deliberately take advantage of bugs or price errors;
• use an offensive team name or harass other participants.

If we believe someone has broken these rules, we may reverse their trades or drop them from the rankings. Serious cases can lead to closed accounts. Our decisions about rankings and prizes are final. If you find a bug, please email us instead of using it.

Changes and cancellation

We may change these rules, including the schedule and prizes, if something outside our control affects the event, such as the market data feed going down for several days. Whenever we can, we'll email participants before a change takes effect. If we can't run the competition fairly, we may cancel it, and no prizes will be awarded.

Using the Market Lab

The Market Lab is provided as is. We work to keep it running, but we can't promise it will always be available or free of errors. As far as the law allows, Luban isn't responsible for any loss that comes from using the simulator or relying on anything in it. We can suspend accounts that misuse the service.

Your information

Our privacy policy explains what we collect when you take part and how we use it.

Contact

Email jsun.luban@gmail.com with questions about these rules or the competition.