[Announcement] Halforums Stock Exchange is OPEN!

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The developers don't have a solution?
It probably depends on what kind of data feed they're getting. I have no clue what official market data feeds actually communicate, but if they're just screen-scraping off of the public market numbers, there's nothing they can do because splits aren't included in that info.

If they're using a more comprehensive feed that includes scheduled splits, there should be a way to do it.[DOUBLEPOST=1356104967][/DOUBLEPOST]Which reminds me, given how reverse splits work, anyone who has a piece of Nike might want to let go of it before the 24th.
 

Dave

Staff member
The developers don't have a solution?
Not really a bug. What Adam is doing is looking at stocks that will be making moves in the future in a big way. He buys a metric fuckton of this stock and when it does the negative split it goes from like $.20 to $5.00 and he makes a killing. He takes that money and buys more stocks that are going to negatively split. How would the dev even code against something like that?
 
To the devs!

Not really a bug. What Adam is doing is looking at stocks that will be making moves in the future in a big way. He buys a metric fuckton of this stock and when it does the negative split it goes from like $.20 to $5.00 and he makes a killing. He takes that money and buys more stocks that are going to negatively split. How would the dev even code against something like that?
It's not really a bug in the coding sense, but it's definitely a fault of design intent, because that's not what happens with the real stock.

When reverse splits happen, the record holders don't all of a sudden see their wealth quintuple, their current record gets exchanged and re-issued according to the value of the new stock instrument. Same as for regular splits.

Adam may (or may not) be a financial genius, but that genius isn't what's currently making him money.
 
Not really a bug. What Adam is doing is looking at stocks that will be making moves in the future in a big way. He buys a metric fuckton of this stock and when it does the negative split it goes from like $.20 to $5.00 and he makes a killing. He takes that money and buys more stocks that are going to negatively split. How would the dev even code against something like that?
You might want to send my link above to the developers. There's a way for them to see that a stock has split. I'm doing the same thing, and I understand the underlying mechanism.

It can be fixed. If you need an easy way to explain it to the devs as a bug, you might try something along these lines:

The stock game doesn't account for stock splits. When a 2 for 1 stock split occurs, the game should double my shares. This means that if I buy 10 shares at $10 each, and the stock splits 2 for 1, then I should have 20 shares of $5 stock. The stock market cuts the price by the same split, so the total amount is the same, but the number and value has changed.

Since the game doesn't account for it, though, when a 2 for 1 split occurs, players lose half their value since the price is cut by 2, but the shares aren't doubled by the game.

This wouldn't be a problem, since it's a loss and players would then be responsible for selling stocks before a split, except in the case of a reverse split.

When a stock stays below $1 for too long, the exchange threatens to delist the stock. The company can combine shares to stay above $1 and thus stay listed. To stay listed the company might opt to do a reverse stock split, where you combine many shares into one share. So if you have a 1 for 10 split, then every 10 shares you have becomes 1 share. Like a regular split, the price is adjusted, so the price per share jumps up by 10.

This means that if I buy 200 $0.50 stocks ($100 value) and it does a reverse split of 1 for 10, then the next day when the market opens my shares are worth $5.00 each, but since the game doesn't split my stock, I still have 200 shares, and my value is now $1,000.

Since splits and reverse splits are often announced ahead of time, it's easy to game the system and increase one's total value by 5x and 10x per reverse split a few times a month.

You can obtain stock split information automatically via API and integrate it into the game. Please see http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6119867/stocks-splitting-api-google-or-yahoo for one example.

This severely unbalances the game and makes it largely unplayable once players understand the loophole.
 
Stock splits are definitely fixable. I've been in other stock trading games where the feed contained outstanding shares so it was relatively easy to determine when a stock split happened. I am 100% totally okay with being reset back to $5000 at any time, Dave.
 
Dave I swear to god if you reset my half million dollars to $5000, it will take air crash investigators to put you back together! GRAAAAAAH! MY ILL-GOTTEN GAINS ARE MINE! MIIIINE
 
Damnit politicians, get your heads out of your asses and get a deal put together on this damn fiscal cliff. My stocks are tanking.
 

Dave

Staff member
If they drive us over the fiscal cliff we should round them all up and drive them over a physical one.
 

Dave

Staff member
All money reset to 10,000 HB. I did not go through everyone, but if you had more than 100,000 of any specific stock, that stock was deleted.

There is now a minimum price set for stocks. If the stock price is less than $2 you will not be able to buy it.

Also added:

Canadian Exchange
Australian Exchange
New Zealand Exchange
Norwegian Exchange
French Exchange
Austrian Exchange
Netherlands Exchange.

Have fun, people! See who breaks what next!
 
So since I invested in a stock which was at $2.37 a share, I keep that stock and have my cash reset to $10,000?

Hm, I'm ok with this.
 
So since I invested in a stock which was at $2.37 a share, I keep that stock and have my cash reset to $10,000?

Hm, I'm ok with this.
Heh. Same. None of the stocks I was currently invested in were valued at under $2.00 a share, so I keep all of my stocks and get a bonus $10k HB. Of course, until this stupid fiscal cliff issue is dealt with, it doesn't really do me any good.
 

GasBandit

Staff member
You'll probably be allowed to keep what you've bought, but buy no more until the price comes back up above 2 dollars, would be my guess.
 
If I sell my fake MSFT stock based on information that I've gained by insider informational means, will I be guilty of fake insider trading and be fake arrested and sent to fake jail?
 
If I sell my fake MSFT stock based on information that I've gained by insider informational means, will I be guilty of fake insider trading and be fake arrested and sent to fake jail?
If you join the revolution, I can promise the new order will absolve you.
 
Well, guess I'd better sign up then, cuz I sold my stocks.[DOUBLEPOST=1356129739][/DOUBLEPOST]Though really, all of the information that would cause me to sell said stock is available to the public, via an official Microsoft website.[DOUBLEPOST=1356130033][/DOUBLEPOST]And has been since February... apparently it wasn't deemed important enough to correct following the Consumer Preview.
 

Dave

Staff member
I reiterate the following:

  • Unless you had over 100,000 shares of a stock, I didn't do anything with them.
  • If you currently have a stock that is under $2 you still keep it and can sell it as normal, but you wouldn't be able to BUY any more shares.
  • This does not totally fix the issue, merely put a band-aid on it.
 
I just put a whole bunch of money into a utility company.

A... British... utility company.

Oh god this was a terrible idea.
 
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