In addition to giving the stock tournament a try (Umoo gave me $5 so that I could try to win some money in the pay to play tournaments), I also talked with Umoo executive vice president Yariv Karfi. “This is a real time competition,” he points out. “You build a portfolio and then see how it does according to how the real stock is doing on the real stock market.”

The tournaments available cover the Dow, S&P 500, Nasdaq and the Singapore stock market right now. Karfi says that Umoo plans to roll out tournaments to cover other major world markets later this year, including the FTSE 100. There are also plans to introduce forex and commodities tournaments, along with a mobile app coming in 2010. It is also possible to develop your own tournaments and invite your friends to play. Social gaming at its finest.

There are different tournaments running for different lengths of time. Many of them are free to play, and you win nothing but a sense of satisfaction. Other tournaments require a fee, ranging from $2 to $20, to play. The money goes into a winner pool. Umoo takes its cut, and then the rest is distributed amongst the top 8 finishers, with the #1 getting the most. The more players a paid tournament has, the more the top finishers can make. I’m about to betray my nerdling past, but it reminds me a lot of the pay to play Magic tournaments of my youth…Only this is a little more grown-up and could have some actual application in the real world.

Using Umoo as an educational tool

In addition to being a stock trading game and tournament, Umoo also has some educational value. “It is possible to do research on companies through Umoo, and look at recent performances,” Karfi says. “This can help you make better choices when building your portfolio for the tournament, and may even have some application in the real world as you consider companies for your real investment portfolio.” He is careful to emphasize that this is a game, though, and that no stocks are actually traded. “I doubt people would be this carefree with their own money. But it is kind of interesting to see what you might be able to do if you had $100,000 and didn’t have to worry about losing any real money.”

He also wants to make it clear that the “stock picker” feature on Umoo isn’t gambling. This feature helps you randomly look for stocks to add to your tournament portfolio. The graphic looks sort of like a slot-machine, but you have to approve the pick, using your own judgment, before you can continue, meaning that there is an element of skill, beyond just the chance of what comes up.

Additionally, it is possible to use Umoo to try out different stock trading techniques. “Umoo can serve to empower people to learn more about stock trading and maybe dip their toes into the market,” Karfi says. “It provides an opportunity for them to learn about some aspects of stock trading, and how it all works. We even allow shorting, so that provides some insight into something that not many people know about it. You can get an idea of how things happen in real time on the stock market.”

But, in the end, it’s important to remember that Umoo is only a game. Just because you manage to pull off a coup on Umoo doesn’t mean you’ll be able to do the same thing the next day on when playing the real stock market.

I had a great time with Umoo, and obsessively tracked my progress. I boosted my portfolio value by selling even after the tournament started, and shorting some positions as the day moved forward. Maybe my tinkering is what did me in. I don’t know. All I know is that I had a lot of fun.

Have you tried Umoo.com?

Post from: EveryJoe

Review: Stock Trading Game at Umoo.com