A multi-page Streamlit app designed to help beginners learn trading in a safe, risk-free environment using historical stock data.

The Interactive Trading Simulator is built to help beginners learn stock trading safely using historical data. It provides practice trading, portfolio tracking, and educational resources — all in a risk-free environment.

Follow these steps to get started:

1. Clone the repository.

git clone https://github.com/ejiang444/interactive-trading-simulator.git
cd interactive-trading-simulator

2. Install dependencies.

pip install -r requirements.txt

3. Run the application.

streamlit run dashboard.py

4. Explore the dashboard pages:
   • Start Here
   • Beginner's Guide
   • Trading Simulator
   • Support Center

• Beginner-friendly onboarding and guidance
• Trading simulator with market & limit orders, portfolio tracking, and charts
• Support Center to contact the developer directly
• Educational resources on stocks, charts, and trading strategies

The app is organized into four main pages:

1. Start Here
   • Onboarding and navigation tips
   • Guides users through the app structure and basic usage
2. Beginner’s Guide
   • Introduces trading basics, strategies, and risk management
   • Provides step-by-step guidance for creating a trading plan
3. Trading Simulator
   • Practice trading using historical stock data
   • Explore market trends, place buy/sell orders, and track portfolio performance
4. Support Center
   • Contact form to send messages directly to the developer
   • Provides help and support for any questions or issues

• Load default or custom CSV stock datasets
• Navigate day-by-day through historical trading data
• Execute market and limit orders
• Real-time portfolio tracking: cash, positions, P/L, and total portfolio value
• Interactive price chart with buy/sell markers using Plotly
• Full trade history table with detailed transaction logs

• Understand stock basics, candlestick charts, and order types
• Learn about risk, fees, and slippage in trading
• Identify common mistakes and tips to avoid them
• Access helpful external resources, including YouTube tutorials and articles

• Send messages directly to the developer’s email
• Simple and intuitive form with fields for name, email, and message
• Friendly success and error notifications to confirm message delivery

The Support Center uses email for message sending. Do not commit this file to GitHub. Add it to .gitignore.

Create a .streamlit/secrets.toml file in the root directory with:

[email]
address = "your_email@gmail.com"
password = "your_app_password"

project/
│
├── dashboard.py                 # Main multi-page router
├── start_here.py                # Start Here page
├── beginners_guide.py           # Beginner’s Guide page
├── trading_simulator.py         # Trading Simulator page
├── support_center.py            # Support Center page
├── report.pdf                   # Detailed project report
├── requirement.txt              # Dependencies
├── README.md                    # This README
└── data/                        # Default stock CSV files
    ├── AAPL.csv
    ├── MSFT.csv
    └── ...

Dates are automatically parsed and sorted by the application.

• Default stock datasets are stored in the data folder
• Users can upload their own CSV stock data
• CSV files should include at minimum:
  • Date
  • Open
  • High
  • Low
  • Close

Install all required packages:

pip install -r requirements.txt

• Python 3.10+ recommended
• Compatible with Windows, macOS, and Linux

A detailed project report for the Interactive Trading Simulator is included as report.pdf. The report (~1,200 words) provides an in-depth overview of the project and includes the following sections:

• Project Description and Methodology:
  • Explains the purpose of the simulator, its target audience, and the design approach used
• Steps Taken and Challenges Encountered:
  • Details the development process, tools and libraries used, and any obstacles faced along the way
• Results and Analysis:
  • Highlights the outcomes of the project, including simulator functionality, user experience, and educational value
• Effort Justification:
  • Explains how the project meets a 1.5× effort level per contributor, including:
    • What makes this project more substantial than a typical assignment
    • New skills or techniques learned during development
• Rubric Checklist:
  • Demonstrates how the project fulfills proposed rubric criteria, ensuring all requirements are met

• Special thanks to Dr. Ingrid Eva Maria Hybinette for providing the data, and to CSCI 4170 Introduction to Computational Investing for the course guidance and inspiration.

Emily Jiang