Fantasy Stocks

We made fantasy football, but for the S&P 500. Draft, trade, and pick stocks against friends and family to climb the leaderboards, all while learning about companies and investing in the process.

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Inspiration

Fantasy Stocks was born from our passion for both fantasy football and investing. We love the excitement of drafting, managing, and competing in fantasy sports leagues, and we wanted to bring that same competitive and strategic element to the stock market. Many people find investing intimidating, so we aimed to create a fun, interactive way for users to learn about stocks through a game they already understand—fantasy sports.

What it does

Fantasy Stocks functions like a fantasy football league but replaces athletes with stocks. Players draft portfolios instead of teams, compete based on daily market performance, and make strategic decisions like trading, adding, or dropping stocks. Weekly matchups determine winners based on stock performance, and users can track leaderboards, trends, and insights to refine their investment strategies. To encourage users to diversify their portfolios, we require them to start nine stocks, representing six sectors and three "flex" spots, which can be stocks from any sector.

How we built it

We developed Fantasy Stocks using Django and Python for the backend, handling user authentication, portfolio management, and real-time stock price tracking. We integrated the Gemini API to provide insights on companies and also provide users with relevant information to make a decision on what stocks to pick. The frontend was built with a simple yet intuitive interface in HTML, CSS, and JavaScript to make it easy for users to manage their fantasy stock portfolios.

Challenges we ran into

  • Data compilation: Integrating stock prices and information for accurate calculations for fantasy scoring required careful API management. Additionally, it took significant work to ensure the news and other APIs were returning accurate and relevant information for each company.

  • Balancing Game Mechanics: We had to fine-tune the scoring system to keep it engaging and fair while reflecting real-world market fluctuations, all while encouraging users to develop healthy investment habits.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

  • Successfully merging the worlds of fantasy sports and investing in a way that’s both educational and fun.

  • Building a functional prototype within the hackathon timeframe.

  • Creating a system that makes investing more accessible to beginners while maintaining a familiar format

What we learned

  • The complexities of game mechanics when applied to stock market simulations.

  • The importance of user-friendly design when creating a game and educational tool.

    What's next for Fantasy Stocks

  • Expanded Data Sources: Adding more market data to provide informed decisions for our users

  • Social & Competitive Features: Leagues with friends, trading between users, and reward-based challenges are our next steps. While starting/sitting stocks for a week to count towards the stock is a significant milestone, we hope to allow our users more flexibility in their gameplay.

  • Mobile App Version: Bringing Fantasy Stocks to iOS and Android for a seamless experience.

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