Paper trading stocks and options on Trenches

How do you buy a stock or an option with paper money on Trenches, and what happens to an order when the market is closed? After this page, you can buy and sell paper shares by the dollar on a computer or a phone, and buy, close or hold an option.

Where are stocks on Trenches?

On a computer, open Trade in the sidebar, then Stocks. On the left is the stock list: Active, Gainers, Losers and Yours. In the middle is the stock you picked, with the tabs Overview, Options and Your position. On the right sit the ticket, where you place orders, and your position.

On a phone, tap Trade, then Stocks. The Shares tab lists Most active, Gainers, Losers and Yours. The Options tab lists the stocks whose options trade most, by ticker, a short code such as NVDA. On both devices, search on Trade finds any other stock.

A short label says where each price comes from: beside the page's tabs on a computer, beside Price source on a phone's Overview. IEX real time and Consolidated are live exchange prices. A label with delayed means those are not available, so you see a backup price from a market that trades around the clock, which can drift from the exchange price.

How do you buy and sell shares?

A share is a unit of ownership in a company. You pay with paper cash, the practice money in your account, at real market prices. You buy by the dollar, from $1, and the ticket turns dollars into shares, fractions included: $50 of a $200 stock is a quarter share. The lesson What a share is explains owning one, and Own less than one share how to read a fraction.

The lessons named here open as your road reaches them; Meet a bike shop, the first Stocks lesson, opens for anyone.

Buys fill near the ask, the lowest price a seller is asking, and sells near the bid, the highest price a buyer is paying. The gap is the spread, so if you buy and sell right away, you get back a little less. The lesson Read a bid and an ask covers both sides.

On a computer:

1. Pick Buy at the top of the ticket.
2. Type dollars, or click a preset ($25, $50, $100 or $250 by default) or Max for all your paper cash. The ticket shows about how many shares that buys.
3. Check the lines under it: Fills near shows the ask, and Commission says None.
4. Click the button. It reads Buy with the ticker and the amount, such as NVDA and $25.00.

To sell, pick Sell and type dollars; Max sells everything. On Your position, Reduce 50% and Close set up a sale of half or all your shares in the ticket. Nothing sells until you press Sell.

On a phone, Buy and Sell on a stock's page open a keypad with quick amounts (percentages on Sell) and Max. Then tap the button at the bottom, such as Buy $25.00.

When can you trade? Market hours and queued orders

Paper shares fill only in the regular session: 9:30 AM to 4:00 PM ET (New York time) on market days. The calendar knows weekends, US market holidays and 1:00 PM ET early closes.

At other times your order queues, waiting for the open. The button reads Queue buy or Queue sell (Queue buy for open on a phone). A queued order works like this:

1. A queued buy sets its cash aside now and shows as Buy queued.
2. It fills at the first ask after the open.
3. A queued sell reserves nothing. Your shares sell at the bid at the open.
4. Cancel takes the order back and returns any reserved cash.

Say you queue $100 when the ask is $50, enough for 2 shares. If the first ask after the open is $40, you still get 2 shares and $20 comes back. If it is $55, the $100 buys about 1.82 shares.

Queued orders fill only while Trenches is open. If you are away at 9:30 AM, yours fills the next time you open the app in market hours, at the price then. Read the session calendar and Know which session you are in teach the trading sessions.

What is an option, and how do you buy one?

An option is a contract, and its price is the premium. A call is the right to buy 100 shares at a set price, the strike. A put is the right to sell 100 shares at the strike. Both last until the expiry, the option's last day.

At expiry, a call pays when the stock ends above the strike, and a put when it ends below it. On Trenches you buy calls and puts:

1. Open a stock's Options tab. On a phone you can also tap a ticker under Trade, Stocks, Options, then Trade options.
2. Pick an expiry. Each date shows its days left.
3. Read the chain, the table for that date: calls on the left, strikes in the middle, puts on the right. A row between the strikes shows the stock's price. Shaded cells are in the money: calls with a strike below the stock price, puts with a strike above it.
4. Click a call or a put to load it in the ticket. On a phone, tap it to open its page.

On a computer, each side shows Bid, Ask, Mid (halfway between the two), IV and Delta. On a phone, a switch picks Mid, Delta or Open int. (how many contracts are open). Prices are per share, and one contract is 100 shares.

You can skip IV and Delta at first. IV, implied volatility, is how much the option's price expects the stock to swing in a year. Delta is about how much the option moves, per share, when the stock moves $1.

The ticket shows:

• Cost at the ask: the ask times 100 times your contracts.
• Breakeven at expiry: where the stock must end to get your cost back. On a call, that is the strike plus the price you paid per share; on a put, the strike minus it.
• Max loss: the premium, all you paid.
• Max gain: Unlimited on a call. On a put, the strike minus what you paid, times 100.

The button reads Buy to open and the cost. The app's options explainer uses this example: an NVDA call with a $222.50 strike and a $2.60 ask. It costs $260 a contract, breaks even at $225.10 at expiry and can lose at most $260.

Option prices are delayed quotes, labeled Indicative OPRA, or the app's own estimate, labeled Model price; real quotes can differ.

How do you close an option, and what happens at expiry?

Closing sells all your contracts of that option at the bid. On a computer:

1. Open the Options tab (Close and In the chain on Your position take you there) and the contract's expiry. A dot marks your strike.
2. Click your contract. The ticket shows its value, Open PnL (your profit or loss so far), Breakeven at expiry, Max loss and Sell to close at the bid.
3. Click Sell to close. It turns into Confirm at, with the bid after it, and a line says how many contracts sell for how much. Click again.

On a phone, tap the contract under Your contracts, at the top of Trade, Stocks, Options, then Sell to close.

Options trade 9:30 AM to 4:00 PM ET on market days and do not queue. Outside those hours the ticket says Market closed and when it opens.

If you hold a contract to expiry, the stock's close print decides it: its price at the closing bell, 4:00 PM ET on the expiry date (1:00 PM on an early close). If it is in the money by at least a cent, it pays its intrinsic value in cash, times 100 per contract. That is the close minus the strike on a call, and the strike minus the close on a put.

Otherwise it expires worthless and the premium is gone. The server handles this even if the app is closed, and your trade history marks it Exercised (it paid) or Expired.

Say you hold the NVDA call above, bought for $260, and NVDA closes at $230 on the expiry date. It pays $7.50 a share, $230 minus the $222.50 strike, so $750: $490 more than you paid.

Easy to mix up: in the money and in profit. If NVDA closes at $224, that call is in the money and pays $150, but you paid $260, so you are $110 down. At expiry, you profit only above the breakeven, $225.10.

Stocks and options trade free on paper: no commission, no fee.