Getting started

Quick start

Go from sign-up to your first paper trade in a few minutes. Five short steps, each on the real trading screen — no downloads, no funding, nothing to lose but simulated dollars.

  1. 1

    Create an account

    Anyone can watch live and recent market data without signing in. To place trades you need a free account: sign up with your email and confirm it with a 6-digit code — no credit card, and a password is optional. One account unlocks the whole platform.

  2. 2

    Pick a trading day to practice

    Practice is a one-click, account-less $100,000 sandbox for any past session, and the clock is yours — jump to the open, scrub forward minute by minute, or rewind. Live instead trades today's session against the real market through a live account; there the clock is the real clock. For your first run, click Start Trading, pick a recent date, and you'll land mid-morning with the rest of the day ahead. (Once a strategy is proven, a bot can trade it for you.)

  3. 3

    Read the option chain

    The center of the screen is the option chain — every strike with its calls and puts, each showing the bid, ask, and live delta. The strike nearest the current SPX price is at-the-money. Option chain & Greeks covers how to read every column.

  4. 4

    Build an order

    Click a cell to add a leg to your ticket; add more to build a spread or an iron condor — every leg fills together as one atomic order. Then choose a type: market fills right away at the natural price, limit only fills at the level you set, and stop waits for a trigger. Before you commit, the ticket previews the fill price, fees, and buying-power impact. More in Orders & order types.

  5. 5

    Track your position

    Once filled, the trade shows up in Positions with live P&L, delta, and a payoff chart across the range of SPX prices. In practice, advance the clock and watch it mark to market. At 4:00 PM ET the day settles automatically — in-the-money options exercise, out-of-the-money options expire worthless. See Positions & P&L and End-of-day settlement.

Where to go next