What is a fantasy stock league?

The format has three moving parts, and every fair league fixes all three before anyone picks:

• The draft. Each player commits a small lineup of real companies before the scoring window opens. Small lineups (three to five names) keep the comparison about conviction rather than diversification.
• The window. Everyone is scored over the identical period. In FanStocks, picks lock at the first market open after the round starts and the round resolves at Friday's close. A shared window is what makes the standings meaningful.
• The scoring rule. The league states up front how performance converts to points, usually percentage return so a $30 stock and a $3,000 stock compete on equal footing.

Because picks lock before the window opens, the game measures the call itself. If lineups could change after prices move, the standings would measure hindsight.

Solo simulators fail quietly: nothing happens when you stop logging in. A league adds the two things that keep people practicing: a deadline when picks lock and an audience that can see the same standings.

The comparison is also fairer than trading-app screenshots. Everyone in a league picks under the same rules on the same window, so "my NVDA call beat your META call" is an apples-to-apples game result rather than a cherry-picked entry point.

In FanStocks: create a league, share the invite link, and each player picks three real companies before the week opens. The league resolves at Friday's close and the standings update through the week. It runs in the browser and is free.

For a longer-horizon variant with a bigger roster, agree on a quarter-length window and a five-stock lineup, and record every pick with its reasoning before the window opens. The reasoning is what makes the post-mortem worth having. See how to write a testable stock thesis.