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Paper trading lets you simulate stock trades with virtual money. Create an account with a starting balance, buy and sell securities, and track your portfolio — all without risking real capital.

How it works

Paper trading uses Yoshi’s action approval model. When you create an account or place a trade, the API returns a pending action that must be approved before execution. This safety layer prevents accidental trades.

Create a paper trading account

The response includes an approval_url — open it in your Yoshi dashboard to approve the account creation.

Place a trade

Buy stock by share quantity or dollar amount:
Provide either quantity or notional, not both. The API returns a validation error if you include both fields.

Use idempotency keys

Prevent duplicate trades when retrying failed requests:
If you send the same Idempotency-Key again, the API returns the cached response instead of creating a duplicate trade. See Idempotency for details.

Check the approval status

Poll the approval endpoint to track whether the action was approved:

View your portfolio

List current holdings and trade history:

What’s next

Actions & Approvals

Understand the full approval lifecycle.

Idempotency

Prevent duplicate operations.
Last modified on April 17, 2026