Abstract: A virtual trading floor system for simulating the selling and buying in a financial market, auction forum or any market where buying and selling occurs is disclosed. The virtual trading floor system comprises a coder/decoder that receives data from a trading source such as data received from a central market place, such as the well-known NASDAQ, CBOT, CME, NYSE, EUREX markets, an exchange database or a website; a graphical interface that receives the data from the coder/decoder and displays a plurality of buying and selling trader metaphors representative of actual buying and selling traders; a control interface coupled to the coder/decoder for initiating orders, and a data interface coupled to the coder/decoder for displaying, receiving and transmitting data sent to and from the trading source.