Free tool

Bubble Timing

In the Bubble Timing game the price climbs parabolically. Sell before the bubble bursts. The longer you wait, the bigger the gain, until there is nothing left. A playful lesson in greed, timing and “this time is different.”

Free, no sign-up, runs in your browser. For illustration only; not investment advice.

🫧 Bubble Timing

The price climbs parabolically: pure euphoria. Sell before the bubble bursts. The later you sell, the bigger the gain … until there is nothing left.

Price: 100 Paper gain: 0% Round: 0 Account: 100

Lesson: “this time is different” rarely is. If you try to catch the exact top, you usually hold too long.

Read more: Exit-Strategien im Trading: Ziel, Signal oder Zeit (German) · Mental Capital: warum 80 % der Trader am Kopf scheitern (German)

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Each round starts at a price of 100. On every tick the price rises a little faster than on the tick before, which gives the curve its parabolic shape. At a random tick that you cannot see in advance, the bubble bursts and the price falls back below your entry, to 40–80% of it. Your account starts at 100 and is fully reinvested every round: sell in time and it grows by your gain, hold through the burst and it shrinks by the loss. Because the results compound, a few greedy rounds can undo many careful ones.

Read the result as a record of your exit discipline, not as a return you could earn. The game exaggerates on purpose: real bubbles follow no formula, the bursting point is not drawn from a fixed window, and in real time nobody knows for sure whether a rally is a bubble at all. What the game does capture is the trade-off you feel in every strong rally. Each extra tick adds gain and risk at the same time, and waiting for the exact top usually means holding too long.