Russell 2000 Downtrend Replay (1996-05-22 to 1996-07-24)
Replay the 1996 Russell 2000 correction across 88 daily bars and a 15.6% drawdown to test your decision-making under pressure. Step through each session, face 11 decision points, and receive an AI coach review, simulated capital only.
88 daily bars · 11 decision points · 1996-04 to 1996-08 · Stocks
Key facts
This window spans 125 days with a peak-to-trough drawdown of 15.6% and a 7.7% run-up.
- Max drawdown
- −15.6%
- Max run-up
- +7.7%
- Duration
- 125 days
- Largest single-day move
- −2.8%
- Bars
- 88 Daily bars
- Decision points
- 11
Every figure above is computed programmatically from this replay’s own candle series — no editorial input, no LLM. Methodology: Methodology
The market advances day by day. You only see candles up to the current day — as if you were really there.
At key decision points choose Buy / Trim / Exit / Hold. Each decision advances the timeline by one day.
After settlement you get a six-dimension score and an AI coach review. Your result enters the scenario leaderboard.
Event Replay
What happened — and what it teaches
In the spring of 1996, the Russell 2000—Wall Street's primary gauge of small-cap American muscle—began a correction that would test the nerves of every participant in the market. Spanning 88 trading days from mid-April through late August, this replay captures a genuine historical episode where the index shifted from steady optimism to genuine doubt. What made this period particularly valuable for training was not the direction of the move but its character: an erratic, multi-week decline that refused to follow a clean script.
The replay data tells a story beneath the surface. The index closed at 331.41, a modest 2.1% decline from its opening of 338.51. Yet this headline figure conceals a far more turbulent journey—the maximum drawdown reached 15.6%, and individual daily bars swung as violently as 2.8%. Eleven decision points are woven into the narrative, with four marked as critical junctures where direction could have shifted dramatically. The market did not fall in a straight line; it stumbled, bounced, and stumbled again, creating repeated moments where a trader had to choose between conviction and caution.
This correction teaches that surviving a drawdown is as much about psychology as about price action. A 2.1% net loss feels almost trivial until you have lived through the 15.6% peak-to-trough pain that produced it. The 11 decision nodes train you to act under uncertainty—each one demanding clarity on whether your thesis still holds or whether adaptation is required. The largest single-bar moves remind you that volatility is not a signal; it is a condition to be managed. For anyone serious about decision-making under pressure, this replay offers a classroom without the tuition bill.
Featured in the archive