Build the best 8-stock lineup 50,000 Star Coins can buy.
Every stock has a daily price. Stars cost a fortune, sleepers cost pocket change, and everyone gets the same budget. Highest portfolio return wins.
Why stocks cost different amounts
The StockAlpha engine prices all 500 stocks every evening, the way DraftKings prices athletes: the names it expects to move the most cost the most.
The Alpha Picks model's expected edge — its score times its confidence in that score.
How the stock has trended over the last one to three months.
How big its typical daily swings are. Range is opportunity — and it's priced.
Earnings this week? Fed decision? Event premium is baked into the cost.
Mega-caps carry a star premium, like marquee players on any slate.
Prices are matched to your contest's length — daily contests lean on short-horizon signals, weekly and monthly contests lean on the model's 5-day and 21-day outlooks. And they freeze the moment the contest is created: nothing moves mid-contest.
Why play Salary Cap instead of Classic
Nobody can buy the whole hot list
In classic contests everyone piles into the same five names. Here, stars are expensive — the edge goes to whoever finds the mispriced value plays.
Same budget, same prices, pure skill
Every contestant faces an identical slate and an identical 50,000 SC. No head start, no bigger bankroll — just better decisions.
It trains real portfolio thinking
Budgets, sector limits, value-per-cost: the exact trade-offs professional portfolios are built on, with practice coins instead of tuition.
How to play
Pick a contest with the Salary Cap badge
Find them in the Alpha Contests lobby — daily sprints, weekly leagues, free entries included.
Fill 8 slots, stay under 50,000 SC
Shop the slate with the Stars, Value, and Contrarian filters. Max 4 stocks per sector — no all-tech lineups.
Lineups lock at 3:45 AM ET
Before the premarket opens on contest day, prices and picks go final. Edit freely until then.
Highest average return wins
All 8 picks count equally. Track the live leaderboard; winners split the Alpha Coin prize pool.
Three tactics that win contests
- Stars and scrubs. Two 11,000 SC monsters plus six value plays is a legitimate build. Balanced, 6,250-average lineups rarely top a leaderboard.
- Shop the Value column. It shows signal per 1,000 SC — the engine's favorite stocks the price hasn't caught up with.
- Respect the earnings badge. Pre-earnings stocks carry a premium for a reason: the move can go either way. Pay it deliberately, not accidentally.
The fine print — read this once
StockAlpha is in Free Beta. Alpha Coins are practice currency with no monetary value.
Star Costs come from AI signals plus market data. Daily contests use our shortest reliable signal — a 5-day model — plus volatility and catalyst data. No model predicts a single trading day with certainty, and we won't pretend otherwise.
Contests are a game and a learning tool, not investment advice.