Be Excellent To Each Other

I've set up a stock market game that we can all enjoy!

Register here:

http://vse.marketwatch.com/Game/Homepage.aspx

The game name is "BeExcellent" and the password is "billpreston".

You begin with $100,000 to buy and sell shares with, the commission per trade is $9.95. Minimum stock value to be traded is $2.00, so no penny trading, people.

Here is a symbol lookup page.

The game will run for three months and the website does the ranking of the players and stuff.

Share tips and advice, and tell tales of shorting gone wrong or brilliant moves here!

Good luck everyone!

I'm selling dead dogs. Sell.

I've joined. I'll start populating today.

Um...
How do I buy stuff?

Once you've joined the game, it's "Make A Trade" on the left.

"make a trade" on the top left.

Select a game and type in the code (see first post for how to find these), it should come up with the company and stuff.

There is a 15 minute delay, and the market is currently closed.

Buy high! Sell low! Wear stripy blazers and shout a lot whilst waving bits of paper! Twang your red braces in a smug, self-satisified fashion! Cause the near-collapse of the world wide economy betting on derivatives no one understands!

I've so got this nailed.

You appear to struggle with 'spelling your own name' though.

Ahhh, crap.

I'm going to blame that on a broken "R" button, and not my own staggering incompetence.

Bwahahahaha "Squit"

When does my order go through?

In about two hours when the markets open, I'd expect.

When the market opens I guess, so maybe jsut after lunch? I'm fairly new at this, too.

Also bear in mind you won't get the price they're listed at in the quote - you'll get whatever the buy price settles at.

With the stocks I choose of some random "stock tip" website, I can't fail to make my fortune!

Going for the 'Pump and Dump Specials', eh? Best of luck.

Right, after using a US National Park as a ZIP code I've slapped some money down on some good investments. I'll be richer than Grim... come closing time.

This confuses and scares me.

Buy low
Sell high
???
Profit

1600 Penn Ave, DC 20500!

Handy address / zip that I remember for all my US website needs.

90210 is the one I always use.

What's the game id it doesnt seem to like beexcellent...

Edit: ignore that.

The OnLive cloud gaming service got more people trying to get on the beta with that code than there were actual people living in 90210

I just put it all on bp. There's no way I can lose now!

That's what I did.

Meh, I was going to try this but the site is such a pain in the arse to sign up for I haven't bothered

Er - really? Seemed pretty easy to me. A one-page account signup, then a two-click game join.

Yeah - I figured login was fairly painless.

I tried again. It worked. Something about pressing the submit button instead of enter, possibly.

I'm down it seems.

Hell yeah! You all laughed at my silly, misspelt name, but now I'm 0.36% up in 5 mins you're not laughing! At this rate Over the course of a week I'll be a trillionaire.

Damn, now I'm down. Ahh, such are the fickle whims of fate. I'd tasted the heady delights of successful, but now they are but bitter ashes in my mouth.

Who bought apple, then? Eh?

Thanks to the generosity of DocG et al today I might be onto a winner with that one


EDIT checks current price. BUY MORE IPHONES FOLKS!

I'm not completely sure what my long term investment strategy is, but going for Halliburton and Lockheed Martin should be OK. Maybe. I might invest the remainder of cash into railroads!

"Confederated Slaveholdings, Transatlantic Zeppelin, Amalgamated Spats, Congreve's Inflammable Powder, U.S. Hay and that up-and-coming Baltimore Opera Hat Company".

I probably shouldn't have invested all my money in just 2 companies.

See, aren't we all having fun?

Heh. The only 3 players that aren't down are the ones that don't appear to have bought any stocks.

Mind you, the start of the day is always like that.

Why the fuck does anyone ever buy anything in the morning, then?

Because everyone selling stuff in the morning is forced to accept a lower sell price (because everyone else is selling after the pre-market too), which means if you're buying, you get a better price.

Basically, at the open of the market, everyone who wants to sell tries to do it as quickly as possible, before the price gets forced down. Everyone who wants to buy then gets what they want at a better price.

http://www.nyse.com might prove to be helpful. I have no idea, though.

Erm... What do we do now?

I think I'll "stick".

Wait 90 days and see who wins.

When do I 'sell'?

When you think what you have is about to do poorly. Or when you want the money to buy something you think will do better than what you have.

Essentially, nobody with any sense would bet on this stuff unless they had either insider knowledge or a way to influence the market to do what you want.

Not necessarily insider knowledge, but enough knowledge and the ability to react quickly to relevant news. But that's why you build a balanced portfolio - so if you get it wrong, you make up for it elsewhere.

I take it you can sell any amount of your shares off to keep some with one company. I fear BP may lose me a fair chunk.

You can look at what other people have and how they are doing as well I think.