This will be a one day a week open discussion/question & answer forum chat room environment, the context of the class will be with real life market events as they unfold.  Handouts, website references and first hand use will provide the necessary vocabulary.  The learning goals of this experience will be more practical extending beyond typical/traditional business classes.  Each session will address stocks and ETFs, with their related options instruments and the decision making methods commonly used by traders in managing transactions.   While the class is a simulation, it is hoped to periodically compare and contrast a real trade, in real time, so students may compare and contrast simulated to real trading software environments.  

As time permits additional elements of fun will include higher level topics involving historical, social, scientific and mathematical concepts being discussed and demonstrated as appropriate.  Note, none of the preceding concepts are necessary to understand the markets but do provide insight and make for novel methods to consider market transactions.  Mathematical concepts such as moving averages, the Fibonacci sequence, and the Golden Ratio will be applied.  Scientific ideas such as herd social mechanics, chaotic theory, and others will periodically be of discussion.  How technical indicators like Darvis boxes, Japanese and Heikin Ashi candle sticks, the Ichimoku cloud and many others all work.  History will play also play a role, events like the October 25, 1929 sell off, called Black Friday, will be mentioned as it is a part of trader psychology.

The learning goals are broad and happen over a period of time as they unfold in the process of discovery.  The learning goals with each class:
* vocabulary used by intra-day/day/swing traders and longer term investors
* chart reading
* what is and how to do time frame analysis
* what is price action and how does it affect a trade
* how trading decisions are made based on technical data

Time based skills (occurring repeatedly as the course unfolds):
* understanding what the expression "all monies are at risk" means
* the difference between active and passive trading
* how social events such as rumor and news affects the market place
* how to evaluate an underlying based on a company's fundamentals

Disclaimer for this class as it deals with subjects of a financial matter: 
*  this class is not offering trading advice, nor advocating the purchase of any market instrument.
*  this class should not be confused as offering investment or financial advise of any type.
*  this class is not promoting any type of trading instrument, firm or solicitation such as a trading firm or for money management.
*  this class is not a game in the sense that the numbers are real, as are the trading metrics and impacts to the market place.
*  DO NOT make any trades based off of the content of these classes.  I am not a licensed financial/investment advisor.

Wanting to actively participate in the stock market goes beyond mere fact based learning approaches in the class room and requires hands on experience.  My skills as a scientist and mathematician go beyond the studies of business metrics and looks at  the dynamics of the market place using analytic qualitative and quantitative skill sets as a past and present active market participant.  I have used these skills to build data mining applications (scanners), real time automated trading applications and custom indicator programs which have been used real time in trading activities.   My relevant training includes mathematical treatment and evaluation of statistical data and applying this knowledge in the market place  as both an investor and retail trader.