The Market Maker Platform is a case-based financial markets simulator and real-time portfolio manager used to train traders to trade and execute strategies in a realistic market environment.  The heart of the software is the virtual market exchange where participants (both real and virtual) compete and trade with intelligent specialists, market makers, and propriety traders (they can be either real or virtual; their degree of "intelligence" can be set by the case administrator) who dominate the market.

The software can be deployed so that participants can trade with each other and the virtual market at the same time.  Market Maker is comprised of many different cases (each with their unique interface) which cover a vast array of theoretical and practical concepts, such as fixed income, futures, options, equities, currency and even technical analysis.

The software comes prepackaged with a number of cases but instructors can also use the "Case Builder" to develop custom cases using a point and click interface.  This software package allows participants to interact with many of the tools you would find in commercial trading systems such as charting, level I & II, time and sales, news, analysis and order entry. Participants can read news and alerts, select different types of charts, use technical indicators, and review their order history.

Participants can choose to place limit or market orders by selecting the quantity they wish to trade and the price they wish to bid or ask in the market.  Securities are driven by news and market events which take place in real-time as the participants trade.  Participants who react first to news and market events are filled at the best market prices.  They also have the ability to "improve" market quotes by placing higher bids and lower asks. Executed orders are shown in a window called time and sales which shows the time, the quantity and price of each transaction as it takes place.

Participants are able to see their pending orders on the screen until they are filled or cancelled.  The charts window displays the historical price information as well as the volume.  The trading screen keeps track of the remaining time in each trading period, the value of the participants' portfolio, and their remaining cash balance.

The Case Builder is a unique tool which gives instructors the ability to build custom simulation cases which compliment the subject material being taught.  With the case builder you can draw price paths (the path that the security will follow over the course of the case), import price paths, or select from existing data which we have complied in our proprietary databases.

The instructor decides how long the trading case will run, the starting cash balances of each participant, the number of periods and the types of securities which will be traded.  Each security can be customized by setting parameters such as commissions, the behaviours of virtual participants, limits on how much can be held and even events such as news.

The Case Builder allows instructors to do the following:

• Turn on/off any class of virtual trading participant (e.g. market makers)
• Determine the degree of involvement of virtual traders (e.g. how active and intelligent they are
• Define price paths for virtual traders to follow
• Choose how fast the market will be at certain times to create neutral and volatile conditions
• Create pre-market activity
• Define starting cash balances
• Setup commission structures, order limitations and how long the market will be open or closed
• Create custom securities and define strike prices, coupon rates, contract sizes and maturities
• Create custom news and alerts which which will be delivered to the participants at times you specify
• Virtual traders can steer the market in the directions you choose