Stocktangle

Gameplay

  • Your goal is to guess the stock that gained the most value on the last day the stock market was open.
  • The game starts with only the answer stock visible, but its logo has been replaced by the Stocktangle logo. The only information you are given is the percentage increase in value of this stock on the last day the stock market was open. This number is the highest of any of the stocks available to guess.
  • You can guess a stock by typing its name or stock symbol into the guessing form, or by clicking on the stock's logo in the sidebar.
  • Every stock you guess that is not the answer will appear in the treemap and in the guess list below. If you guess a stock that is in the same sector as the answer, the options of stocks to guess in the dropdown and the array of logos will automatically be filtered down to stocks in that sector. You can narrow down the available guesses even further by guessing a stock that shares its industry with the answer.
  • Among the list of stocks you can guess, the one that lost the most value during the trading day is the bomb. If you guess this stock, you instantly lose the game.
  • There is only one answer per day, and after you guess it (or the bomb), that day's game is over. The next game starts at midnight UTC (12:00 AM UTC). If you want to keep playing, you can work on your skills in practice mode on the profile page.

Stock Data

  • The list of stocks from which the answer has the highest gain will change depending on the day, but it's usually the top 100 stocks in the S&P 100, a major U.S. stock market index consisting of 100 of the largest, most established, blue-chip companies listed on the NYSE or NASDAQ.
  • Gain in value is the percentage difference between the data date's market close value and the value at market close from the previous trading day.
  • The date of the stock market data is the last day the stock market was open before the game starts, which is midnight UTC. If the most recent stock market day is the same as yesterday, then today's game will be based on the same market data, but the list of stocks to guess from will be much larger, like the S&P 500. This is so that there's still a game to play even when there is no new market data.
  • All of the data for Stocktangle comes from the APIs available from EODHD.
  • Here's an example of how the stock data works: if you are playing on Tuesday, and the Monday before is not a holiday, then the game's market data comes from Monday. The increase in value of a stock we'll call STCK would be calculated as follows:
    • On Friday, Nov 21, the STCK close value was $154.85
    • On Monday, Nov 24, the STCK close value was $162.25
    • The value increase of STCK in Tuesday's game is (162.25 - 154.85) / 154.85 = 4.78%

The Treemap

  • The visualization of stocks represented by rectangles of different colors and sizes is called a treemap. This kind of illustration is often used to show the current activity of the market. You can see treemaps of the stock market through the lens of various indices updated continuously throughout the day on finviz.com.
  • In Stocktangle, like in Finviz, the color of the stock block illustrates its percentage change over the trading day and the size of the block is relative to the stock's market cap. Bright green stocks had high increases and bright reds had sharp decreases. In a regular game, the stock that increased the most will always be gold, and the "bomb" stock will always be black.
  • You can click on any stock in the treemap to learn more about its fundamentals.

Grouping

  • If there are 2 or more stocks of the same sector in the treemap, those stocks will be grouped together and a label will appear at the top of the group. Likewise, if 2 or more stocks in one sector are part of the same industry, then those will be grouped together even more tightly and another label will appear at the bottom.
  • Grouping and labels occur regardless of whether one of those stocks is the unrevealed answer.
  • Click on a label to create a filter that removes stocks that are not in that label's group from the treemap. If the treemap stocks are already filtered, clicking on the filter's label will clear it.

Practice Mode

  • When starting a new practice game, you can choose which index of stocks you want to test yourself on. Only indices with fewer components than the daily game's index are available to practice on. The market data will always be from the same trading day as the daily game.
  • In practice mode, the answer stock is silver instead of gold. This stock isn't necessarily the best stock of the day—it is chosen completely at random.
  • There is no bomb in practice mode.