Duelling Fools: Dummy Portfolios

Can dummy portfolios help you learn about the stock market?

As you may have already seen, The Motley Fool is about to invest £50,000 of its own funds into a real-money portfolio. The new service will be called Champion Shares PRO and we hope it will be both educational and highly profitable.

So it seemed an opportune moment to turn the attention of Duelling Fools to the subject of paper or dummy portfolios. This method is often recommended as a way of learning about the stock market. You run a mock portfolio for a short time, pretending to buy and sell shares and getting used to the vagaries of investing. But does practice make perfect, or is there no substitute for having your own cash at stake?

• Malcolm Wheatley reckons dummy portfolios are an ideal way to learn about investing.
  
  
• David Holding believes you have to put real money on the line, 
  
  
•  What do you think? Vote now in our Duelling Fools poll.

Result of our last duel

Last time we asked what you thought about the prospects for BT? It was one of closest duels yet, with both the bulls and the bears ending on 40% (although the bull case did get one more vote).