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Playing the Stock Market By: illianatgd You've been hearing all sorts of rumors about how much money people have been making in the Stock Market, but you have no clue how to use it to your advantage? No problem! The Stock Market can be a great investment...if you have the right tools and a little patience. First off, you must realize that the main point of the Stock Market is to 'buy low, sell high.' This means that you try to grab a stock near its lowest point, and sell when it reaches its peak. The rules state that you can only buy stocks that are going for 15 or more nps, so try to buy when the stock is near that number. When it rises to a decent level (20 - 200 points higher than you bought it)...sell it. NEVER sell your stock while it is still under what you paid for it. If you bought it at 15 neopoints, don't sell it for anything less. It may take a week, a month, or longer (if you picked the wrong stock), but it WILL go back up. You just have to wait. To play stocks you also have to do a little homework! Look at various graphs and see how often a particular stock has low points. How often does it peak? Is it just coming off of a huge climb? (Then don't buy it!) Is it starting to climb after being near the bottom of the graph for a while? (Quick...buy that stock!) No matter how many people on the Stock Tip board yell at you to 'buy, buy, buy!' a particular stock so it will go up...don't listen. The Stock Market isn't run by how many shares are bought, it is run on a sneaky and mysterious pattern that can be carefully graphed. The best website I have found for checking out the Stock Market patterns is neodaq.com . A Neopets user named w3neo runs it, and he has done some exhaustive research. Before you invest in a stock, go to this site, click on the name abbreviation, and if it shows that the company is just coming off of a 'peak' on the graph...don't buy it. If they were recently in a very low spot, but have been climbing a little, it's a good chance that you have found your stock! Above all you must have patience, and a decent 'nest egg', to play stocks and actually make a lot of money. In order to make the 'big bucks', you must buy between 500 and 1000 shares a company, and be willing to leave all of that money in there for weeks if necessary! Since Neopets only allows you to buy 1000 shares a day, this makes your decision a little tougher, but much more profitable in the end. It forces people to do their homework, and not just 'guess'. Guessing is a quick way to lose your shirt in the market. So let's say you bought 1000 shares (your daily limit) of a company that looks like it might rise soon. Let's also say that it cost you 15 neopoints a share, (the lowest amount you can purchase a stock for). That would run you 15,000 neopoints just to invest in that one company! If you can't afford to let that much money sit and build up for long periods of time...don't play stocks. Lets take a look at the 'Find A Stock' board and figure out what everything means...
The first 3 boxes mean absolutely nothing. You can officially ignore them. :) The first box is merely an abbreviation of the company name. This is used in the Stock Tips Chat so that you can quickly identify your particular stock without typing the whole name in, and so you can click on it to buy. It is also what is used by the ticker at the top of the screen so that you can keep an eye on what your stock is doing. The second box is just the company name, and the third box just shows how many shares have been purchased in that company. Remember...how many shares you buy does NOT affect the rising and falling of stocks. Therefore none of these boxes is of major importance. The fourth box shows the price that the stock started the day off with. So AAVL 'opened' at 17 neopoints a share, while BOOM 'opened' at a staggering 108 neopoints a share. This means that if you had bought these shares right after midnight NST, AAVL would have cost you 17 neopoints per share, and BOOM would have cost you a whopping 108 neopoints a share. The fifth box shows the current price that the stock is going for. This is where the interesting stuff starts to happen. In the above example, AAVL started off the day at 17 neopoints a share, but it is now selling at 18 neopoints a share. This means that if you had purchased 1000 shares of AAVL at the beginning of the day you would already have made 1000 neopoints! VPTS also started the day at 17 neopoints a share, but it is now selling at 15 neopoints. This means that if you purchsed 1000 shares of VPTS at midnight, you would have just lost 2000 neopoints! Are you starting to see how it works? The last box is your 'quick check' box. All you have to remember is that green means 'good', red means 'bad', and black means 'you're going nowhere fast'. :) The longer your company stays in the 'green' the better off you are. Now, let's take a look at your portfolio. It's really not as confusing as it looks.
By looking at the above example we can get a pretty clear picture of what's going on with our money. Match the colors of the explanations below to the colors in the chart to see how I figured everything out! TPEG - I bought 100 shares of TPEG for 16 neopoints each. That cost me 1,600 neopoints. It 'opened' at midnight with a cost of 14 neopoints each and is still holding steady at 14 neopoints. There has been 0 change in either direction today. If I sold my shares now, I will have lost 200 neopoints, and only get 1,400 neopoints back. Therefore, I will hold onto my shares until it gets well above 14 neopoints. This stock is in the red...no sale. AAVL - I bought 1000 shares of AAVL at a cost of 15 neopoints each. That cost me 15,000 neopoints. It 'opened' at midnight with a cost of 17 neopoints each, and has changed +1 point. This means that it is now worth 18 neopoints each. If I sold my shares now, I will have gained 3,000 neopoints and gotten 18,000 neopoints back. Nice! But the graph shows that it will continue to rise for a while, so I'll hold onto it for now. (By doing this I do run the risk of another long wait...but that's what the Stock Market is all about.) This stock is in the green...can be sold at a profit! See if you can figure out BOTT and CHPS for yourself. :) Stocks aren't that hard, they are simply more of a mental challenge than, say, Scorchy Slots. You have to work a little to make your money, but I find the rewards of a good sale much more satisfying this way. It's great mental exercise, and the rewards can be astronomical if you grab the right company at the right time. If you decide to play Stocks, don't be afraid to ask questions! No one said it was easy, and no one can give you all the answers, but at least this will give you a good start on your way to building your own portfolio. To recap playing the stocks... DON'T DO The stock market refreshes every 1/2
hour so you can check your stocks to see how they are doing. This was borrowed from neodaq.com and modified slightly |