Guides, market eras and company stories
Explore how Blindfolio works, which market periods can appear in a round, and why familiar companies feel different when their names are hidden.
Start with the basics
Short explainers on blind investing, portfolio building, S&P 500 comparison and learning finance through play.
Blindfolio is a stock market game built on real historical data. Invest without company names or era labels and try to beat the S&P 500.
A free investing game where companies are hidden, eras stay secret, and every round asks whether your decisions beat the S&P 500.
Simulate investing through hidden historical periods: inflation, bubbles, crashes, recoveries, tech booms, and bankruptcies.
A blind investing game where Apple, Enron, Nvidia or Lehman may be hidden behind temporary codenames until the round ends.
Try to beat the S&P 500 across a hidden historical period. Blindfolio compares your return to the index at the end of every round.
Build a portfolio from stocks, ETFs, bonds, cash, commodities and crypto while the historical era stays hidden.
A financial literacy game about diversification, timing, bubbles, crashes, index funds, and why markets look easier after the result is known.
Market eras
Bubbles, crashes, inflation and recoveries you can play through without seeing the date or label in advance.
Play through the dot-com bubble without seeing the era name first. Build a hidden-period portfolio and compare the result with the S&P 500.
Play through the 2008 financial crisis without seeing the era name first. Build a hidden-period portfolio and compare the result with the S&P 500.
Play through the COVID crash without seeing the era name first. Build a hidden-period portfolio and compare the result with the S&P 500.
Play through the AI boom without seeing the era name first. Build a hidden-period portfolio and compare the result with the S&P 500.
Play through 1970s inflation without seeing the era name first. Build a hidden-period portfolio and compare the result with the S&P 500.
Play through the lost decade without seeing the era name first. Build a hidden-period portfolio and compare the result with the S&P 500.
Classroom and student use
Materials for lessons and self-practice: decide blind first, then discuss the reveal and the market context.
Use Blindfolio to discuss diversification, bubbles, crashes, index funds and investor behavior in a short classroom activity.
A classroom-ready stock market game: students play the same hidden-decade challenge and discuss who beat the S&P 500.
A free investing activity for teachers: hidden company names, real historical eras, S&P 500 comparison, and ready discussion questions.
Company case studies
Famous winners, failures and debated cases from the catalog. Each story focuses on what an investor could see before the ending.
Apple is a test of product cycles, margins and patience: the later winner did not look obvious during every drawdown. Play the blind investing scenario without the company name or final outcome.
Microsoft is about recognizing a business that can reinvent itself without losing the enterprise customers that pay the bills. Play the blind investing scenario without the company name or final outcome.
Amazon asks whether you can accept thin near-term profits when reinvestment is building logistics, marketplace scale and cloud infrastructure. Play the blind investing scenario without the company name or final outcome.
Google is a study in judging a cash-generating search business while new bets, regulation and advertising cycles blur the simple story. Play the blind investing scenario without the company name or final outcome.
Meta tests whether you can look through sentiment swings and still weigh the strength, risk and cost of a giant social platform. Play the blind investing scenario without the company name or final outcome.
Nvidia turns the round into a question about chip cycles, demand waves and how quickly a strong narrative can become a crowded trade. Play the blind investing scenario without the company name or final outcome.
Tesla is less a straight car-stock puzzle and more a test of execution, financing cycles, belief and position sizing. Play the blind investing scenario without the company name or final outcome.
Netflix is a clean way to test whether a platform transition is real before the market agrees on the final streaming story. Play the blind investing scenario without the company name or final outcome.
AMD is a comeback case: cyclicality, product execution and market share shifts matter more than the name on the chart. Play the blind investing scenario without the company name or final outcome.
Intel asks whether an old leader is temporarily out of rhythm or facing a deeper structural loss of advantage. Play the blind investing scenario without the company name or final outcome.
IBM is about slow reinvention, sticky enterprise relationships and the patience required when a famous company stops feeling exciting. Play the blind investing scenario without the company name or final outcome.
Oracle rewards attention to recurring database revenue, disciplined capital allocation and the less glamorous side of software durability. Play the blind investing scenario without the company name or final outcome.
Cisco is a classic valuation lesson: a real infrastructure leader can still disappoint if the starting expectations are too high. Play the blind investing scenario without the company name or final outcome.
Adobe asks whether a creative-software moat can survive a business-model shift and still deserve a premium price. Play the blind investing scenario without the company name or final outcome.
Salesforce is a SaaS discipline test: growth looks powerful, but the round forces you to care about profitability and dilution too. Play the blind investing scenario without the company name or final outcome.
PayPal turns payments into a competition question: network effects matter, but so do fees, rivals and changing checkout habits. Play the blind investing scenario without the company name or final outcome.
Shopify is a merchant-growth story where valuation can run faster than the operating proof, especially in a hot market. Play the blind investing scenario without the company name or final outcome.
Uber asks whether platform scale can eventually overcome regulation, incentives and the long wait for durable profits. Play the blind investing scenario without the company name or final outcome.
Snowflake is a data-cloud growth case where the hardest part is separating real usage from a valuation that already assumes a lot. Play the blind investing scenario without the company name or final outcome.
Palantir tests how you weigh mission-critical software, government contracts, commercial expansion and a very opinionated market story. Play the blind investing scenario without the company name or final outcome.
MicroStrategy mixes an operating software business with a balance-sheet bet, so the stock is also a lesson in exposure you may not intend. Play the blind investing scenario without the company name or final outcome.
Coinbase is crypto infrastructure rather than a simple coin bet, but the economics still move with cycles, regulation and trading appetite. Play the blind investing scenario without the company name or final outcome.
Enron is a trust case: polished growth, complexity and accounting confidence can hide the moment when the numbers stop deserving belief. Play the blind investing scenario without the company name or final outcome.
Lehman Brothers is about leverage and funding: the income statement may look alive while confidence in the balance sheet disappears. Play the blind investing scenario without the company name or final outcome.
WorldCom shows how a telecom growth story can look huge until accounting quality and capital intensity become impossible to ignore. Play the blind investing scenario without the company name or final outcome.
Bed Bath & Beyond is a retail-turnaround warning: brand familiarity cannot repair weak execution, leverage and fading customer relevance by itself. Play the blind investing scenario without the company name or final outcome.
Kodak is the uncomfortable brand lesson: knowing the product is not the same as owning the technology shift that replaces it. Play the blind investing scenario without the company name or final outcome.
Pets.com is a dot-com reminder that attention, mascots and a simple idea do not solve unit economics. Play the blind investing scenario without the company name or final outcome.
Webvan is the delivery dream before the math works: demand can be real while logistics and cash burn still break the plan. Play the blind investing scenario without the company name or final outcome.
Blockbuster is a distribution-shift case: a famous retail footprint can become a burden when the way people consume media changes. Play the blind investing scenario without the company name or final outcome.
Yahoo is a lesson in early internet advantage: traffic and brand were powerful, but not every first mover keeps the profit pool. Play the blind investing scenario without the company name or final outcome.
Bear Stearns is a confidence test: in leveraged finance, market trust can disappear faster than the published numbers change. Play the blind investing scenario without the company name or final outcome.
Washington Mutual shows how a deposit franchise and mortgage growth can feel safe until underwriting quality becomes the whole story. Play the blind investing scenario without the company name or final outcome.
Hertz is a debt-and-cycle case: travel demand matters, but the balance sheet decides how much pain the company can absorb. Play the blind investing scenario without the company name or final outcome.
WeWork asks whether a growth narrative can survive lease obligations, governance questions and the economics of physical space. Play the blind investing scenario without the company name or final outcome.
General Motors is an industrial-cycle case where scale, pensions, restructuring and technology shifts all compete for attention. Play the blind investing scenario without the company name or final outcome.
Ford makes you weigh brand strength and truck profits against cyclicality, debt and the cost of changing an old manufacturer. Play the blind investing scenario without the company name or final outcome.
Exxon is a commodity-cycle lesson: the business can be excellent and still depend heavily on price, capital discipline and timing. Play the blind investing scenario without the company name or final outcome.
JPMorgan is a bank-quality case: risk management, deposits and cycle control matter more than a single quarter of earnings. Play the blind investing scenario without the company name or final outcome.
Bank of America is about rebuilding after stress, where rates, credit quality and investor memory all shape the decision. Play the blind investing scenario without the company name or final outcome.
Citigroup is a complexity lesson: a global bank may look cheap for years if the structure remains hard to fix. Play the blind investing scenario without the company name or final outcome.
Berkshire Hathaway is a capital-allocation puzzle: insurance float, patience and discipline matter more than a flashy product cycle. Play the blind investing scenario without the company name or final outcome.
Walmart tests respect for scale: low margins can still produce a formidable business when execution and supply chains compound. Play the blind investing scenario without the company name or final outcome.
Costco is a membership-model case where loyalty, inventory discipline and trust can matter more than headline retail margins. Play the blind investing scenario without the company name or final outcome.
Disney combines brands, parks and media transitions, so the round is about separating durable IP from changing distribution economics. Play the blind investing scenario without the company name or final outcome.
McDonald's is a franchise-quality lesson: consistency, real estate and operating discipline can be more important than menu excitement. Play the blind investing scenario without the company name or final outcome.
Coca-Cola is a brand-and-distribution case where slow compounding can be easy to underrate when nothing looks dramatic. Play the blind investing scenario without the company name or final outcome.
PepsiCo is about defensive breadth: snacks, beverages and distribution can smooth a business that rarely looks like a market darling. Play the blind investing scenario without the company name or final outcome.
Johnson & Johnson asks how much credit you give to healthcare diversification when litigation, regulation and trust sit in the background. Play the blind investing scenario without the company name or final outcome.
Pfizer is a pipeline-and-patent case: one product wave can matter, but durable value depends on what follows it. Play the blind investing scenario without the company name or final outcome.
Moderna is a platform-biotech test: the market may price a breakthrough quickly, while the next proof still has to arrive. Play the blind investing scenario without the company name or final outcome.
GameStop separates market mechanics from business reality: flows, squeezes and online attention can move faster than fundamentals. Play the blind investing scenario without the company name or final outcome.
AMC is a recovery-and-debt case where audience enthusiasm, reopening hopes and balance-sheet pressure all collide. Play the blind investing scenario without the company name or final outcome.
Beyond Meat asks whether a food trend can become a profitable habit before competition and margins rewrite the story. Play the blind investing scenario without the company name or final outcome.
Peloton is a demand-normalization lesson: a passionate user base does not automatically make pandemic-level growth permanent. Play the blind investing scenario without the company name or final outcome.
Zoom tests whether an indispensable tool during one market moment can keep the same growth once behavior normalizes. Play the blind investing scenario without the company name or final outcome.