If you’ve fancied a flutter on the stock market but have never had the bottle or the financial freedom, why not test your skills with a practice portfolio? They’re free, simple to set up and you can be up and running in a matter of minutes.

To get a feel for market machinations and to test your stock picking skills there’s probably no better way than jumping on in. You’ll be using real market data to make your decisions and it will be those same real market forces determining whether or not you’ve made the right ones.

On the plus side any losses you accrue are make-believe. On the negative, your gains possess all the purchasing power of Monopoly money. But if you have a flair for the game then you can turn your pretend portfolio into a real one by choosing an online broker and handing over your hard-earned. You could be knee deep in real bulls and bears within the hour.

If nothing else it’s a great way to group all of those equities you’d like to keep an eye on together in the one place. I’ve got a ton of portfolios set up tracking all manner of equity combinations. “Alt energy”, “on the radar”, “sold but may revisit” and “possible shorts” are just some of the portfolios I currently have on the go.

From a single page I can check out the most up-to-date prices, price movements, and trading volumes for all of the shares in a particular portfolio, I can follow and add to investor discussion on a given share, I can create customisable charts utilising masses of historical data and I can access fundamental data on any of the shares featured in a portfolio.

To get up and running with your own free practice portfolio pay a visit to ADVFN or Interactive Investor and start choosing your shares.

Good luck!