When Mikiel van Smyker, a young, European IT professional living in Tokyo, wanted to get some practice in stock trading, he was not comfortable with the trial accounts offered by brokerages or internet-based investment courses. So he decided to create a free, unaffiliated stock-trading simulator where he, and thousands like him, could experience trading in a neutral forum. The result is www.stockerz.com, an independent, ad-free simulator for trading in stocks on the NYSE and NASDAQ Stockerz is free to use, and also does not carry advertising, so that users see a clear uncluttered trading interface without distractions. With unlimited use, users can trade until they are ready to go into the real world, confident that no broker will be urging them to open an account and