IDEA: Selling of stocks on public market

[bjornredtail]

Ok, I have a long range idea involving the totally redone stockmarket of the future/past™. Perhaps we should make aquireing inital offers of stock relatively hard to get, with a strictly limited number of shares. Players can then sell the stock back to the company at far below fair market value, or selling to other users. Problems arise with the overall lack of user activity and market liquidity though... That is why this is likely to remain (for the most part) just an idea. Also, we have to do have a problem with the idea of Stock Market Market Storeing too, even if the importance of public market stock tradeing is reduced by a relative abundence of shares.

[Alcaline the Badger]

I'm liking this idea...

[The Beatles]

I confess I don't entirely understand it. I assume the company is an automatic entity created in the game. But why would a player sell to the company below the market rate, for a loss? In fact, if the stocks are hard to get and profit is likely to be incremental and long-range, why would anyone use it when the bank is a more secure mode of income? Or do you mean to amplify the fluctuations of the current market to create an incentive?

[bjornredtail]

Ok... Yes that was somewhat intentionally confueseing. Sorry...

What I am (sortof, I am not really sure if it is a good idea) proposeing is an place where most stock trades are execuated with other players, instead of the computer. Market value woule become basicly what the players make it, with some bottom limit set by the proposed company buyback.

What I am worried about is we might not have enough players to support this kind of tradeing. So, if someone sells on the market, there might be very few intrested in buying, thus it would push values lower, and basicly slow the whole proscess down.

True, this is EXACTLY how it works in real life. For example, I could try to sell a share of say SCOX (SCO, you know the guys from Lindon, UT who were trying to sue various Linux users) for $1,000,000. The only thing stoping me from doing it is no one in their right mind would buy a share of SCOX for that price. But in real life there are tens acting on the behath of thousands to make trades. So, for any company of reasonable size, there will be a buyer for it.

Here, we only have at most one hundred players, only four or five of which will be online at a given time, and only one playing the market at any given time. So chances of any rapid trades is very unlikely.

. But why would a player sell to the company below the market rate, for a loss?

The idea is you can get your money right now, instead of waiting for another player to buy the stock.

[The Beatles]

I see. Well, that is a great idea, an entirely revamped system. Apart from the fact that rapid transactions are unlikely, it doesn't have drawbacks. And if we give the players stocks at signup, they have an incentive to trade.

[Urran Voh]

What if we (the players) could purchase Stock of a military troop. The more Hares (for example) that all players have, the more our stock goes up. I mean the total number of Hares in the game, not just your warband.

[The Beatles]

Liable to excessive influence by a select group of players.

[bjornredtail]

Personally, I don't really like my idea on a whole, at least if it is used as a "stock market". The lack of liqudity makes day tradeing impossible. Unless...

Ok, I've got it. Make this system I proposed a "forign currency investment" system. Each location has its own curency. There would be a base, really lousy exchange rate (espically when buying a forign currency with your existing currency), with some varation. Players could invest an amount of currency using the "through the computer" rates, but would be guerenteed to loose. However, players could offer to trade a certain amount of their currency for an amount of another, without any extranious fees. Hence, both parties could be invested in another locations currency. Should the computer's exchange shift to favor one player, they could make a profit by changeing back to their currency. Perhaps even link the comptuer's rate to the running human rate.

So... Just how would this figure into Networth Calculations, Sacking, and the markets?