10 Best Stock Market Day Trading Simulators in 2024

Evaluate and contrast the leading Trading Simulators that simulate real market conditions with historical market data. Pick the best Day Trading Simulator of your choice for day trading practice:

Simulated trading accounts provide access to live or delayed market data for practicing how to trade. The accounts are accessible via multiple broker platforms or third-party tools such as MetaTrader 4 which do not operate brokerage services.

The practice of simulated trading proves beneficial for both novice and experienced traders. For instance, beginners can use it to gain and practice trading skills and knowledge from scratch, while intermediate and advanced traders use it to practice and hone their skills and trial trading of new assets and new strategies or those they are unfamiliar with.

Top Trending Day Trading Simulators: Hand-Picked

This tutorial discusses how to simulate day trading/day trades, types of simulated trading, frequently asked questions on simulated trading, and best tried and tested simulated trading platforms.

Who is this Research for?

This research is for beginner to advanced day traders looking for software to simulate day trading either to test new unfamiliar assets/assets whose prices they do not know how they react to markets or to try out new or unfamiliar trading strategies whether self-made or bought from the market.

It is also for beginner to advanced traders who want to know which tools they can use to replay their real trades, know the mistakes they made during trading, and learn from those mistakes. It has the potential to aid aspiring traders in developing and mastering a range of trading skills, from beginner to advanced, in a trading environment that suits their preferences.

It can also help companies who want to redesign/improve their simulators or come up with new ones.

How did we arrive at the list of day trading simulators?

It has to be the quality and features of the day trade simulators, as well as the ratings and ranking on the web. The information we rely on is derived from thorough software testing by our team and external entities, as well as insights from reviewers who have firsthand experience with the software.

In addition, it is necessary to examine the information companies provide about their software.

How to Simulate Trades Using Trading Simulation Software

The first step is signing up for a free simulator account with email and password on a forex, stocks, CFDs, crypto, options, e.t.c trading broker website or app.

You get access to the dashboard, unreal balance to toy with, and trading functionality to allow you to open and control trades and the trading experience as well. Other types allow you to replay past live markets at your speed and time and practice based on that data.

During trading with a simulator, you will have the freedom to place different orders, decide which asset class to test trade, and even test trade with multiple of them.

Test whichever trading strategy you like (swing, scalping, day, long term, or other strategies like holding) place any amount per trade, place as many trades as you wish, and access trading data to measure your trading outcomes (for instance, see profits and losses and other metrics).

Without any monetary risks, a trading simulator provides you with actual market conditions as you would access with a live account, except that you do not use real money to trade and connect with a bank account. Keep in mind that trading with a live account involves real money, which can lead to variations compared to a dummy account.

Types of Day Trade Simulators and Their Differences

The following day trade simulators enable you to place simulated orders as well. Certain platforms support the linking of a brokerage account and the placement of orders during live trading sessions.

Live Market Simulators: The most common type of day trade simulators, which offer access to live market data and feeds on which to trade. During market hours, traders fill simulated orders, and live market day trading simulators provide the opportunity to trade on a current market day within 5 days.

Market Replays: These simulators can be used 24/7 and offer realistic price actions. The market can be experienced like an on-demand video, allowing you to simulate orders and test your custom trading strategies to see their performance. Thus, you do not need to record your screen when trading to review later. Some of them also include a trading journal for reflection.

Because the data is historical, traders can use this type of simulator even at night and on weekends, outside of the normal market hours in any region, without any challenges in filling orders. Traders can replay any day in a year of choice.

Some of these trading simulators allow you to import past trading data from your live accounts that you run on supported broker platforms.

Thus, you can better see the mistakes you made during live trading sessions and missed trading opportunities. Others have ready data for practicing and you don’t need to import anything.

List of the Best Day Trading Simulators

Some popular and best trading simulators:

1. TradeStation
2. TraderSync
3. MarketWatch
4. Pilot Trading
5. MetaTrader4
6. TradingSim
7. NinjaTrader
8. Wall Street Survivor
9. HowTheMarketWorks
10. Thinkorswim by TD Ameritrade

Comparing the Top Stock Market Simulators

Detailed reviews:

#1) TradeStation

Best for beginner, intermediate, and advanced traders.

Many day trading simulators come with a fixed amount of paper trading money, but TradeStation’s amount is unlimited. With TradeStation, persons wanting to simulate trading get access to live market data, the capability to test advanced strategies and orders, the capability to automate trades, and it can be based on live and historical data.

Features:

• Analyze trends in the current and past market conditions using trend, momentum, relative strength, and mean reversion type of indicators.
• Track trades and positions.
• Learning materials on how to simulate or do live trades. Also, get regular market information updates and trading insights updated throughout the day as you learn to trade on the desktop app.
• Level II data access.

How to use TradeStation trading simulator:

Step #1: Visit the website or download apps. Click/tap Open Account, then the Sign up button. Fill in and submit the required data and information. Set up a password.

Step #2: Log back in when the account is accepted and access the simulator from your preferred device, which includes desktop and mobile.

Step #3: Start to trade.

Pros:

• A vast quantity of trading data is available for simulating trades, encompassing over 90 years of daily data and several decades of intraday data.
• No time limit for the simulator and there is no limit on the amount of unreal money to replenish the account. Many brokers place a limit on these two.
• Access to the huge community of traders.

Cons:

• Can’t simulate forex trading and there are limited learning resources on simulated trading.

Our Review: TradeStation’s trading simulator lets you test advanced strategies and automate trades on real markets using vast amounts of data which increases the chances for best simulation conditions. This makes it useful to even the most advanced traders, although forex is not supported.

#2) TraderSync

Best for re-making trading strategies and then retest your past real trades imported from your trading broker.

Experiment with TraderSync’s day trading platform for seven days using their trading journal and simulator. Traders can import their previous trades from their broker.

From there, it will be possible to replay trades and charts from past (real) markets using custom strategies and then see how you perform from the replays. Thus, you get to know the mistakes you made from your past trades to improve in the future.

Features:

• Add notes per trade or day, for instance, why you did the trade or traded, and what you learned from a trade, and review those notes later.
• Create, add, edit, and manage portfolios. Assign trades to the portfolios
• Free-to-join contests in which a trader can join and practice their learned skills in particular strategies.
• Access to only 4 years of historical data.

How to use TraderSync trading simulator:

Step #1: Sign up for an account on the website.

Step #2: Add trades manually or import them from your broker. Create strategies and journals per trade. Add or tag setups such as notes, mistakes, screenshots, targets, stop-losses (one or multiple), and other things per trade added.

Step #3: Check performance per trade, e.g. your winning rates, which have the highest returns alongside their setups, etc.

Pros:

• Document your trades in a journal and review your trading journey later on.
• Feature-rich. Do more than just simulate trades. For instance, adjust trading strategies per added or imported trade to then learn your past mistakes and how to improve them.
• Import your real trades with different brokers.

Cons:

• Only stocks supported so far.
• Paid features. The trial is only accessible for seven days.
• Limited data and no live data simulation.

Our Review: TraderSync is a detailed and feature-rich trading journal used for learning from any mistakes and identifying opportunities for improving your trading performance. You practice with your past real trades imported from any real stocks broker or manually created from scratch.

#3) MarketWatch

Best for gamified investment and trading.

MarketWatch’s virtual exchange platform is for traders who want to learn and practice stock trading through games hosted on the platform. It’s one of the best stock market simulators considering its 400,000+ games (made by platform users/customers) in which traders compete with other traders to improve on diverse stock trading strategies.

After creating an account, you get a $1 million virtual balance (and $200,000 initial buying power) with which you can practice trading. You can choose from a list of trading symbols to trade with, use advanced charting, and leverage real-time market data to simulate trading.

Features:

• Margin trading, short-selling, limit orders, stop orders, watchlists to track stock performance, and over 20 research tools including stock screeners, market screeners, IPO calendars, Earnings calendars, and mutual fund finders. Get access to news and analysis from MarketWatch and trade on them or use them to decide which stock to trade. Monitor every transaction and performance using metrics.
• Rich and multiple market data types, e.g. U.S. stock movers, ETF movers, New 52 high/lows for NYSE and NASDAQ.
• Discuss trading strategies with other players in a game that you are playing. Climb up leaderboard.
• Access trading resources, such as learning how to use the simulator.

How to use the MarketWatch trading simulator:

Step #1: Register for an account. Takes a few minutes to get access.

Step #2: Search for a game to play by logging in and selecting games from the drop-down menu next to your profile name. Sort by recent, most played, start date, etc. Choose and join a game and start playing.

You can also create your own public or private game for others to play (for instance, invite through a custom URL your students to play and learn stock trading, etc.). Decide on which stock to trade, create portfolios, customize your strategy, and start trading.

Pros:

• Advanced features for simulation include multiple and advanced order types.

Cons:

• Only stock markets are supported for simulation.

Our Review: MarketWatch gamified trading simulator provides a social scenario for learning how to trade besides the vast amount and types of tools with which to learn how to trade. Utilize the vast number of games available to practice virtually any stock trading strategy.

#4) Pilot Trading

Best for traders wanting to simulate and use trading signals, especially with limited time and skills, to watch charts and craft strategies from scratch.

Pilot Trading simulation is trialed for a month only. The platform caters to traders in stocks, forex, futures, and crypto seeking AI-based real-time trading signals to enhance their live trading.

And this is what you get to trial during the one-month trial period of the pro features on the platform. The signals are based on market data from various brokerages and are tailored to customer’s watchlists. You can also trade on it live with a broker account if you have a subscription.

The trial version delays market data for 15 minutes while the simulation uses historical data. You can use any to simulate trading, test your trading strategies, and or test whether the provided signals work.

Features:

• Trial over 60,000 securities and digital assets globally. Conduct trial trades with actual broker accounts.
• Live signals. A gauge shows the strength of the signal and whether it is a buying or selling opportunity. Get opportunities per signal. Each opportunity is scored from -100 (sell) to +100 (buy) based on the data from the four algorithms.
• For live traders with a subscription, you get signals based on four algorithms namely commitment, perception, sentiment, and equilibrium.

How to use Pilot Trading Trading simulator:

Step #1: Visit the website or app and register for a free account. Click or tap Create User & Subscribe to agree to the 30-day simulation popup.

To use simulation, go to profile, select Demos, and click the big plus sign. Click the “add” button under Demo Mode to add Demo Mode or one under Simulation Mode to add Simulation Mode. Select “go to profile” to use the Demo or Simulation Mode.

Step #2: Connect a broker and start creating a custom watchlist. Get updates on trends within the markets on the watch lists.

Pros:

• The 30-day demo can simulate trades and trial all pro features including live trading. The simulation mode has vast limitations.

Cons:

• No real-time data for demo traders. You must have a subscription to access live market data.
• The demo has limited data. The app has limited data access, no charts, no news feeds, and no level II data provided. There are no TP and SL tools.
• The order types are restricted, but they include risk-management options like take-profit and stop-loss targets.

Our Review: In addition to limited information on how the algorithms work, Pilot Trading has a very limited simulation platform, although it is still possible to perform trades with historical data while testing the platform’s AI-based signals.

#5) MetaTrader4

Best for advanced and expert traders desiring the use of multiple trading tools and broker integrations.

MetaTrader4 comprises a host of features for forex and stock CFD traders. MT4 is free to use. A demo trading account with a broker that integrates MT4 provides access to all features accessible with a live account.

This includes automated trading, copy trading, trading signals, advanced charting, and advanced order types. MT4 is the best to simulate trades when you consider the features and functionality and their extent.

A demo account also allows traders to simulate trading using real-time market data. It is one of the best stock market simulators for trading all types of CFDs, given its features.

With regards to copy trading and trading signals, beginner and advanced traders alike can test own or purchased trading bots and strategies (from a market of over 17,00 of them) and over 2100 technical indicators using the simulator.

Most programs and robots have demo versions so you can trial them with the demo account. Besides, the MT4 website provides detailed guides and articles on how to use each feature.

Features:

• 6 order types, including 4 pending order types. There are 2 stop orders and a trailing stop. There exist 3 execution modes.
• 23 analytical objects, 30 in-built indicators but over 2,100 are accessible for free or paid on the market, 9 timeframes. Level II data.
• Thousands of free and paid signals. Copy or buy and edit strategies using MetaEditor. Test strategies with tester. Devices can either own robots using the MQL4 language or purchase them.
• Financial news. There are alerts and notifications.

How to use the MetaTrader 4 trading simulator:

Step #1: Either create a demo account on a broker website/app that integrates with MT4 and then download (mobile and desktop or use web trader) and log into MT4 with the broker account details, or create a free demo account directly on the MT4 and simulate trading without a broker account or real money. It will give you unreal or so-called virtual money.

Step #2: After logging in, use the MarketWatch, Menu, Trade, Account History, Toolbar tabs to access markets, charts, and other tools you need to trade. The New Order option from the Toolbar allows you to place trades and you can adjust the types, amounts, and other details relating to an order.

Pros:

• Very feature-rich for demo and simulated trading.
• Integrates with many asset trading brokers, allowing you to test MT4 offerings from different brokers and compare their offers before committing real money.
• There is no limit on the period for demoing or trading simulations.

Cons:

• Can be quite challenging for newbies and those looking for the best trading simulator for beginners.

Our Review: Intermediate to experienced traders will find the MT4 trade simulating platform very feature-rich with nearly all the tools and capability to test most of the trading conditions they will encounter in the market, all for free.

#6) TradingSim

Best for trading replays across multiple markets.

TradingSim is a platform on which traders can instantly replay their past live trades and market conditions over and over to test/simulate and master the trading strategies they desire. It provides access to 2 years of market data, with a capability for traders to replay even the trades they missed.

If you choose to trade stocks on the platform, you get access to data for past live markets and hence can place trades, customize your strategies, and test their performance based on this data.

You can place trades and review their performance based on pre-set strategies. The service is not free though, but you can test it for a week before committing less than $33 to $37 per month for premium access.

Trading replays help you avoid having to record your screen during live trading so you can review the exercise later, which is tedious. Visit the platform, choose a day in your calendar, and type the symbol you want.

Devices Supported: Web

Assets Tradable on the Simulator: Stocks, ETFs, commodities, crypto, futures, bonds, 3 indices (SPY, iShares Russell 2000 Index Fund IWM, and Diamonds Trust Series I or DIA).

Features:

• Replay markets better with pause, stop, and 7 fast-forward buttons. Use 50 technical indicators, 60 drawing tools, and multiple time frames.
• Two years’ worth of historical tick data for over 11,000+ symbols on the Nasdaq, AMEX, and NYSE.
• Market movers widget, watch lists, trade analytics, market scanner, level 2 data on premium subscription and its trial, multiple chart views (up to four of them side by side), ability to change account balance, hold multiple positions and customize the background.
• Resources on how to better your trading simulation.

Pros:

• Being a replay simulator, it is available 24/7. Live simulators are available during market trading hours. You access market data relating to any past day.
• Multiple markets to replay.
• Access to advanced trading tools including charts, scanners, and analytical tools.
• Hotkeys for swift trading action in a fast-moving market.
• Different replay speeds help you replay slowly and see trades with a higher flow speed at times of volatility.

Cons:

• Limited free trial only for simulators (7 days), afterwards you will need to pay to simulate trades.
• Historical data is limited to two years only.

Our Review: TradingSim simulator provides a great opportunity to simulate multiple markets for multiple assets by replaying past live markets for each asset.

You can choose to learn by watching the markets or by placing trades on the platform using customized strategies after which you can analyze their performance.

#7) NinjaTrader

Best for intermediate to advanced traders looking for an advanced trading platform.

NinjaTrader provides a live market simulator that would be helpful for all new, intermediate, and advanced traders looking for an advanced trading platform. It can be used to learn basic to advanced trading skills or for testing new/unknown/unfamiliar trading strategies (including backtesting automated strategies gotten from the marketplace) and markets/assets to see how they move.

Traders can simulate trades with either a free unlimited simulator or with a 14-day trial. Live market simulation means you can’t best simulate conditions off-market hours. One can play, pause, and rewind markets when simulating.

Features:

• Over 100 in-built technical indicators (plus 1000+ third-party ones). Develop custom indicators and apps with c# language, and strategies, or use third-party indicators. Strategy Builder is a tool to build strategies without programming skills (however you can also check the code).
• Level 2 data with market depth etc.
• Advanced order types such as stop, target, trailing stops, etc. Use order flow analysis to visualize buying and selling pressures.
• Get Kinetick in-house data feeds, use stock screeners/scanners, use balance resetting, do market analyses, trade from charts, and use a trading journal by adding and saving text annotations in the chart.

Pros:

• Most advanced trading features for any subscription can be trialed with the simulator.
• Being able to craft your own strategies without programming skills. Also, the ability to backtest automated trading strategies.
• Multiple simulation accounts. Multiple entry windows are also possible.
• Route your simulated trades to your live trading if you have connected a broker account.

Cons:

• Only for futures trading. Not clear if you can simulate other trades without a paid subscription.

Our Review: NinjaTrader simulator is a way for testing the rich offerings at the platform including the ability to auto trade and program own trading strategies without programming knowledge, in addition to the extensive library of in-built and third-party trading indicators supported.

#8) Wall Street Survivor

Best for beginner traders.

Wall Street Survivor customers get $100,000 of unreal money to practice trading and they can leverage mini-courses to complement the simulator in learning how to better trade.

The simulator takes traders through various courses and missions, which if they complete will help the trader earn specific trading skills and knowledge. There is also video and written content with information on how to better trading skills.

The real-time market simulator also has functionality that allows users to create their own market simulation games with a custom logo, and custom end date, and get a URL with which you invite friends to play. It also comprises monthly contests and leagues in which customers can win prizes.

Features:

• Trade-learn by following one of the platform’s pro traders. See their trading histories and activity from the feed and mirror their trades or follow the topics and issues they discuss. Converse trading with the people you are following and the ones you are playing the game with. The platform has over 500,000 registered users. Also, get analyst recommendations and ratings of a particular asset before investing. Metrics in the latter case are given by several analysts who report on that asset, the previous month’s recommendation rating, and changes in the average recommendation.
• The Ideas section provides clues on which stocks to trade.
• Create watch lists—access to the news feed. More courses, quizzes, and content are accessible with a subscription. Earn badges with a paid subscription.
• Sort and join leagues by popularity, see leagues you are in,

Pros:

• Extras consist of money management tips, tutorials on financial literacy, and advice on which assets to trade.
• Gamified trading with contests makes it fun to learn how to trade. Earn money to invest in real stocks.
• Multiple order types including basic order types, as well as stop and trailing stop loss order types.

Cons:

• Limited charting especially on mobile. Charts aren’t interactive or live but static. No live candlestick chart and no live prices (prices are updated every 10 minutes or daily). No indication of the point of order entry on the chart.
• Bugs and design issues.
• Stocks are limited to only those of U.S. companies.

Our Review: Wall Street Survivor provides basic trading simulation features with several shortcomings but traders do participate in the gamified trading simulation and earn real cash while learning to hone their trading skills and knowledge.

#9) HowTheMarketWorks

Best for learning environments.

Like other trading and market simulator platforms, one of the use cases for this one is training. It provides access to real-live market data, virtual cash for trading with, and trading resources such as videos and articles on how to trade.

Users can access and play contests or create theirs and invite other people to play. The games have dates, a cash balance, trading rules, and assignments decided upon by the people who create them.

Features:

• Contest with real prizes to be won. Get certificates after completing contests.
• Orders for smaller stocks are delayed by 15 minutes. We ensure that all orders are filled in real time.
• Contest creators can see the trades and holdings of all the participants in that contest. Export all holdings, histories, and balances of everyone in a contest, into your contest.
• Personal finance calculators e,g, Home Budget Calculator, newsletters, books you can use to better your trading, etc. Get access to Wall Street Analyst Ratings, Financial Glossaries, Calculators, Quotes, Charts, and Statements.

Pros:

• Include assignments, articles, videos, and tutorials in the contest, for instance, for purposes of helping your students. Lesson plans are also available for teachers.
• Access to investing courses which have most of the basics one needs to trade assets. Vast trading resources and guides also accessible.

Cons:

• Incomplete or under development. For instance, it is not possible currently to quit a contest when one likes, not able to reset balances (only the contest owner can do so by contacting support),

Our Review: HowTheMarketWorks provides a host of features for beginner to advanced traders, including over 100 videos and tutorials on how to trade and trading ideas. It is great for group learning environments with a host of features for teachers.

#10) Thinkorswim by TD Ameritrade

Best for people looking for advanced trading tools.

Thinkorswim platform has a paperMoney simulator that provides real live market data access on which a trader can simulate trades. It is accessible by first installing the Thinkorswim platforms and logging in to the paperMoney when launching the ThinkorSwim.

What’s more? The trading simulator gives access to almost the same number and extent of charts, and indicators and other functionality accessible on a live account.

The Add Simulated Trades tab can also analyze any strategies and trades before sending them to live trading. It contains features such as risk profile and probability analyses, back-testing on the thinkBack tool, access to hundreds of indicators, etc.

Features:

• Layout optimization. Customize watch lists, live news, and level II quotes, write trade notes on the scratch pad, and access Trader TV.
• Set up multiple charts in a grid. Use profit and loss analysis to review performance.
• Market scanners, alerts, news, quotes, multiple charts side by side on a single window view, risk probability and profile analysis, volatility analysis, back-testing, and complex orders are available features.
• Share ideas with other traders through in-platform chat rooms.
• Trading education and market/trading insights are available via article guides, podcasts, market commentaries, third-party independent research resources, etc.
• Send orders to the live market.
• Level 2 data.

Pros:

• Access to advanced trading functionality, including advanced charting, hundreds of indicators, and research tools.
• Access information on how to use and trade in the simulator.

Cons:

• Some features can’t be trialed on the simulated or paper trading account.

Our Review: TD Ameritrade offers an opportunity to trial many tools and features that are accessible in the live account, including advanced charting, research tools, and order types, and will offer good exposure for those who want to use a live account.

How to Choose a Day Trading Simulation Software?

Consider the following most important factors when choosing a day trading simulator software.

• Consider the assets (or the type of them) that you want to live and trade later after demo trading because the more you practice trading that asset, the better your chances of winning trades in live trading.
• Consider the tools and functionality provided. After all, you want a broker trading platform with functionality that allows you to make the most out of day trading, therefore, it the better if they provide the same functionality on the simulator. A simulator allows you to test and know how to best use those features later in live trading.
• Ease of use. We also compiled the tried and tested best trading simulator for free.
• Realism and accuracy of the data. Simulators provide a plethora of data types, most live or real-time market data to allow the best simulation of live accounts.

Trading Simulator – FAQs

Conclusion

This tutorial on Day Trading Simulator considers the best platforms on which to simulate day trading. We compared them based on several factors, especially the extent of features and functionality. Most day trading simulators exist to test the platform on which they are hosted in addition to learning how to trade.

Third-party ones include the MT4, TradingSim, Pilot Trading, TraderSync, and MarketWatch which can be used without a brokerage account.

We suggest you consider platforms that offer conditions that are as close to a real market as possible, ones that offer diverse market research tools, charting and drawing tools, level II data, and advanced order types because they offer better market exposure that allows you to learn advanced trading.

Trading Station offers to 90 years of trading data for free to practice day trading, advanced charting, and research tools, a capability to automate trades, and there is no limit to the account. For these reasons, we ranked it as the best day trading simulator. MarketWatch is best for gamified trading simulation while MT4 is the best feature-wise.

Further Reading =>> List of the best Day Trading Platforms

Research process:

• Total software initially listed for review: 36
• Trading simulators reviewed: 10
• Time taken for the review: 28 Hours