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HOW TO EARN POINTS AND WIN

First, let’s tell you how Vestly works:

Pick the stocks that you think are going to perform the best and win cash and prizes. As the stocks you pick increase in value, you earn points; the more points you have, the higher on the leaderboard you’ll be. If you can make it to the Top 10, you will win real cash! Sounds simple enough, right?

Well, there are other ways to win on Vestly: earn tickets! Tickets are your entries into Vestly’s weekly drawings for $500 in gift cards. See below for the many ways in which to earn tickets.

I DON’T KNOW MUCH ABOUT THE STOCK MARKET. WHICH STOCKS SHOULD I BUY?

That’s one answer we can’t give you because getting that right is how you’ll win $$$.
– Join a group to share your investment ideas or chat with other members
– Check the Vestly Community Picks at the top of your Newsfeed
– Check the Newsfeed for headlines on what companies are up to
– Look for stocks of companies that you think will do the best – you know which companies have the best products, the best services, the latest fashions, and the hottest technologies. Maybe it’s the best companies in the industry you happen to work in. Take your time and really give it some thought. Be creative! You’ll be surprised how many great stocks you can come up with. Pick some awesome, well-performing stocks and watch your points rack up!

IS THERE A WAY FOR ME TO GAIN TICKETS WHEN I FIRST START OUT?

You can earn one ticket just for buying your first three stocks. There are some other really simple ways to earn more tickets. Just tap on the white ticket in the top right corner of the app to see ways to earn more tickets at the bottom of the screen. Many of those extra tickets will then automatically show up every week!OTHER WAYS TO EARN TICKETS:

Tell us a little about yourself
Trade your third stock
Open Vestly on three separate days in any one week
Allow Vestly to send you push notifications
Gain 500 points in your portfolio
Create a Group Challenge that maintains at least 5 active members at the end of the week (see Group Challenges section below)
If you win a Group Challenge with 5 active members at the end of the week then you also win one or more tickets depending on the group’s size

OK, AWESOME! NOW, HOW ARE MY POINTS CALCULATED?

Our point system works like this: every .01% increase in the total performance of your portfolio (Contest Gain/Loss) gives you one point – the opposite applies as well, every .01% decrease loses you one point. So, for example, if your Contest Gain/Loss is +5%, then your point total will be 500.

Important: Points are calculated based on the overall portfolio gains, not the increase of individual stock prices so you cannot just add the % gain of each stock. When you have 3 stocks, all of your capital is allocated. When you have more than 3 stocks, then your capital is divided among the up to 10 stocks maximum you may hold in your portfolio.

WAIT, WHAT IS CONTEST GAIN/LOSS AND HOW IS IT CALCULATED?

Vestly runs weekly contests so at the beginning of every week you will see your Contest Gain/Loss at 0%. As the stocks in your portfolio increase/ decrease in value, your Contest Gain/ Loss will either rise or fall. To get an estimate of your own Contest Gain/ Loss, you will have to calculate the performance of all the stocks you’ve bought or sold over the course of the week taking into consideration how much investment capital was allocated to each. Luckily, our systems use complex and accurate calculations to do the math for you.

If you’d like to get an idea how your stocks have done since you bought them, you can look at the ‘Since Traded’ display on the My Portfolio tab. This reflects changes since the time when you bought the stock. Note that the ‘Since Previous Close’ toggle tells you how the stock has performed since it closed yesterday which is what you typically see on financial websites. However, the impact of that number will be different based upon when you bought the stock and how many stocks you have in your portfolio. For example, if the stock closed yesterday at $100, but you bought the stock today when it was already up to $103 and then its price then drops to $102, the stock could be green (up) since yesterday while your ‘Since Traded’ value could be down (red) since it went from $103 to $102 after you bought it.

I SHORTED A STOCK. HOW DO I KNOW IF I’M UP OR DOWN?

When you short a stock you are basically betting against the company. If the value of the stock goes down you gain points (+ green) and if the value of the stock goes up you lose points (- red). So, in the case of a stock you sold short, if it is green, you earned points from a decrease in the value of the stock since the time you shorted it.

HOW DO I WIN THE WEEKLY POINTS CONTEST?

The 10 people with the most points at the end of each week will win real cash. Make sure that you’re checking the leaderboard to see where your points stack up against the other players. Oh yeah – never give up! We’ve seen players all the way at the bottom of the leaderboard during the middle of the contest make a huge comeback and win cash!

WHAT CAN I WIN?

Each week, the Top 10 players will win the following cash amounts:

Place	Prize
1st	$500
2nd	$250
3rd	$100
4th	$50
5th	$20
6th – 10th	$15

Didn’t make it into the Top 10? You can still get ticket entries to win $500 in gift certificates that are given away randomly each week. For every 500 points you earn in each weekly contest, you will receive one ticket entry into these drawings! For example, if you earn 1001 points in a weekly, you will get two tickets into the drawing. But there’s lots of other ways to earn tickets. There’s no cap to how many ticket entries you can earn and even if your points fall beneath 500 after having reached it once, you keep your tickets.

SO I DIDN’T PLACE IN THE TOP 10 OR WIN THE TICKET DRAWING THIS WEEK. CAN I STILL WIN MONEY?

We want to make Vestly as much fun as possible for all of our players. If there is any unclaimed prize money, one week after a weekly contest period ends, we will hold a random drawing for all active players who participated in that week’s contest. You might win money just by using the app, so keep checking that leaderboard!

WOW, NICE PRIZES! IS IT REALLY FREE TO PLAY?

That’s correct – zero, nada, zilch. There is no purchase required, check our Official Contest Rules for more information.

I PLACED IN THE TOP 10 OR WON A RANDOM DRAWING. HOW DO I COLLECT MY MONEY?

Congratulations on being a rockstar investor! To claim your cash, tap the gear to the lower left of your profile photo on the My Portfolio tab of your Vestly App. Then hit “$ PAYOUT”, fill out all of the fields, read the full Winner’s Declaration, and then press “Submit”. Verify your name and hit submit one more time, then you’re done! Shortly after that, you can expect a check from us to arrive in your mailbox. Remember, you only have one week to claim your prize!

BUYING/SELLING STOCKS AND CHECKING THE LEADERBOARD

I BOUGHT MY FIRST THREE STOCKS. HOW MANY MORE CAN I BUY?

You can hold a total of 10 stocks in your portfolio at any given time. Feel free to sell and buy more stocks whenever you feel like.

A STOCK THAT I’M LOOKING FOR ISN’T IN VESTLY. WHY?

You can buy any liquid stock of real companies (meaning no ETFs, mutual funds, or things like that) listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) or NASDAQ. Some stocks will be listed and shown as grayed out – this is because we’ve identified them as illiquid (usually due to having a low stock price or not being traded much). These stocks may give some knowledgeable players an unfair advantage. It’s worth noting that it’s entirely possible that we simply might have missed one. If there’s a stock you want to buy and don’t see it as a choice, please press “Contact Us” to let us know!

OK, I FOUND A STOCK THAT I WANT TO BUY OR SELL. WHAT PRICE DO I GET?

When you buy a stock, you get the prevailing ask price and when you sell it, you get the prevailing bid price. All transactions happen at the exact time you tap buy or sell, just like in real life!

HOW DO I KNOW IF THE MARKETS ARE OPEN OR CLOSED?

The stock market is open on business days between 9:30am and 4:00pm EDT. However, it is closed on certain holidays.

SO THE MARKET IS CLOSED AND I WANT TO BUY OR SELL A STOCK. WHAT HAPPENS?

You can buy or sell stocks on Vestly anytime you want! These trades will be filled at the published opening price on the next day that the stock market is open and will be reported to you by roughly 10am.

I BOUGHT A STOCK JUST NOW WITH THE MARKET OPEN, BUT IT STILL SHOWS 0%. WHAT GIVES?

We report your trades on a 20-minute delay, so you’ll see prices and points change 20 minutes after your trade.

NOW THAT I BOUGHT A STOCK, HOW MANY SHARES AM I GETTING?

Great question. Think about it as if everyone starts out with the same amount of virtual “cash”. The first 1/3 of your cash is used to buy your first stock (and we do the calculations to figure out the right number of shares), the second 1/3 of your cash is used to buy your second stock, and your remaining cash is used to buy your third stock. It’s important to note that you don’t have all your cash working for you until you own at least three stocks.

MAKES SENSE, BUT HOW MUCH AM I BUYING WHEN I BUY MORE THAN THREE STOCKS?

As we mentioned above, you can hold up to 10 stocks in your portfolio. If you add a stock to your portfolio when you already hold at least three stocks, you are buying a proportionate amount (i.e., a fourth stock will be for 1/4 of the value of your overall portfolio, a fifth stock will be for 1/5 of your overall portfolio, etc.). We automatically sell an equal amount of the stocks you own in order to fund the purchase of that new stock.

WHAT HAPPENS TO MY POINTS WHEN I SELL A STOCK?

If you own a stock that is performing particularly well or one that isn’t, your points are always up to date based on the performance of your total portfolio. If you want to “lock in” the points that you’ve earned on a really high performing stock, you can choose to sell that stock – this means that the points gained from the stock will not be lost. The same applies in the opposite direction, if you own a stock that is performing poorly, your score will be actively impacted negatively. You can choose to sell the stock to prevent losing any more points, you can wait for it to rebound, or you can purchase more stocks to reduce the impact that a decreasing stock might have on your portfolio.

WHAT HAPPENS TO THE CASH WHEN I SELL A STOCK?

If you own three or less stocks and sell one, then the proceeds of that sale go back to virtual cash. If you own more than three stocks, then the proceeds from that sale are automatically used to buy more of the stocks you already own at the prevailing market price.

WHAT HAPPENS IF MY STOCK PAYS A DIVIDEND OR SPLITS?

If your stock receives a dividend during the contest period, then it automatically gets reinvested into that stock at the opening price of the day it goes “ex-dividend”. In your “Trading History”, you will see the bought price has a little “d” next to it to signify that a dividend was paid and reinvested. Similarly, splits and other corporate actions are automatically adjusted in your accounts and noted with a little “s” next to the bought price.

WHAT HAPPENS WHEN A NEW CONTEST STARTS?

We make it very easy for you to enter the next weekly contest. Any stocks you hold at the end of a weekly contest will be automatically bought at the opening price of the next week in equal proportions if you stay active on Vestly. Even if we buy them for you automatically, you still get the automatic ticket for having bought three stocks. You also earn a new ticket each week for having answered those six questions about yourself and another ticket for having your push notifications turned on. Of course, you should check to make sure you still want those stocks for the next contest. You can always sell those and buy new ones if that’s what you prefer.

GROUP CHALLENGES

How do I create a Group Challenge?

Begin by going to the Leaderboard tab and tapping either the gold banner or the down arrow beside the Friend Leaderboard. Tap Create Group then name your group, and you will be asked to invite people into your the Group Challenge.

You can create up to 5 Group Challenges, and you can access them by clicking on the down arrow next to your Friend Leaderboard.

How do I win a Group Challenge?

You have just been added to a Group Challenge or have created a new Group Challenge, and you are ready to show your friends and family that you are the next stock picking genius.

You win a Group Challenge by simply scoring more points than the other players in your group. Yes, it is just like the regular weekly points contest … the better you trade, the more points you earn… the more points you earn, the higher you rank in your group.

Ultimately, we just want you to have fun, win some money and teach you about the stock market. With that said, we do have to set a few ground rules, so that everyone has a fair chance at walking away victorious.

Group Challenge rules:

A Group Challenges must have at least 5 active members for the weekly winners to receive any tickets (to be active, a member must have checked into Vestly at least once in that particular week).
While you can join a group at anytime, if you join during the last week of the weekly contest period, you won’t be eligible for a ticket for winning the group .
All Group Challenge winners must have been active within that particular week to receive any winning tickets.
You must have an appropriate name for your Group Challenge–– a good rule of thumb here is to not name your Group Challenge anything you wouldn’t feel comfortable saying at the dinner table.

Here at Vestly, we like to see people win, that’s why we shell out so much money on a weekly basis. We also understand that there is never just one winner in the stock market…

So, depending on how big your group is, this determines how many winners there will be. A group of 5 will have just 1 winner, while a group of 32 can have 6 winners. And the more people you have in a Group Challenge, the more tickets you can win. See chart:

So how do the tickets work?

Each ticket you earn is your entry into our weekly contest drawings.

Weekly Tickets Drawings: Each week, we have a ticket drawing where we give away $50 gift cards to 10 winning ticket holders.

There is no ceiling on how many entries an active investor can earn –– the more tickets you rack up, the higher your odds will be at winning one of our awesome prizes.

HOW TO EARN POINTS AND WIN

BUYING/SELLING STOCKS AND CHECKING THE LEADERBOARD

GROUP CHALLENGES

OTHER QUESTIONS YOU MAY HAVE