Paper Trading with Webull

There are huge benefits to selecting a broker that offers paper trading. I primarily use Webull for my day trading, and I like their paper trading platform. Here are the basics to using Webull’s paper trading platform.

For a quick rundown of why paper trading is important for the new trader, listen to my podcast, The Daycare Day Trader, by clicking below. I go over the pros and cons of paper trading, and I touch on some of my trades from the past week. Enjoy!

The paper trading section is a little hidden on Webull’s mobile platform. To get to it, you’ll need to go to the “Menu” in the bottom right corner of the screen. Then, you’ll need to scroll down to the bottom to find the paper trading.

Once you click “Paper Trading,” you’ll be taken to your paper account. You can set your account value to whatever you want. I recommend setting it to the same amount you plan to use in your real account. It’s easy to get cavalier if you’re trading with a million dollars! The point of using a paper account is to simulate how you will trade in real life once your ready. You want to be practicing with share sizes and dollar amounts that fit with your real account later.

On your paper account screen, you’ll see your account value, your P&L, your current positions, and your orders. There are also buttons for trading, viewing your completed orders, checking your overall performance, and for Webull’s paper trading contests. The contests (when they run them which isn’t all the time) are a lot of fun and you have the ability to earn Amazon gift cards for doing well in them.

To place a trade in your paper account, you’ll to tap the “Quick Trade” button. This will take you to a screen where you can search for and enter the ticker of the stock you want to trade. Once you select a ticker, you’ll be taken to the following screen which shows the chart of the selected ticker.

To place a trade, you need to tap the yellow button at the bottom that says “Paper Trading.” This will pull up the order window and you can enter all the details of your order.

Select whether you want to buy or sell a position (buy will be the default setting), enter the number of shares you wish to purchase in the “Quantity” field, and choose your order type. In WeBull’s paper trading, you only have the option to enter a Market order or a Limit order. More advanced order types are not available for paper trading, but they are available in your account. A market order will place your order to buy shares at whatever the current market price may be. A limit order requires that you enter a limit price which is the price you are willing to pay for your shares. A limit order will fill at your selected price or better. Time in Force is where you will select how long you want your order to remain active. “Day” means if your order does not fill, it will automatically be canceled at the end of the day. “GTC” stands for “Good ‘Til Canceled.” Your order will remain active for 90 days and if it does not fill before then, it will be canceled. WeBull also has an Extended Hours button. Select this if you want to place an order outside of the normal trading hours of 9:30am to 4:00pm EST. Finally, tap “Place Order.” You’ve just entered an order in your paper account!

You can reset your paper account any time you want. Paper trading is a great to learn some of the platform features before you begin trading with real money. If you do not have a trading account, you open one by clicking the button below and you’ll receive two free stocks as a signup bonus.