5.1 Stocks

All companies in Tycoon Online start out with 50 shares. During the game, these shares may be traded on the stock market. By trading wisely, you can make nice profits and climb the stock ranking (S-ranking), which is won by the player making the best stock purchases throughout each round.

When buying a share in a company, you earn the right to a small part of the company's profits every week. You can also make money by selling the share when it has increased in value. Owning shares does not give you influence in a company, and if the company goes bankrupt, the shares you own in it become worthless.

## Buying stocks

Whenever a player puts one of his or her shares for sale, it appears on the stock market. You can find it by clicking "Shares" (under "The stock exchange") and then "Buy shares". You may buy 5 shares every day, but only one share per company. You can own a maximum of 2 shares in each company. There is no upper limit on how many shares total you can own.

Some shares do not appear on the list of stocks for sale. These are shares you cannot afford, shares you have already bought one of on the same day, and shares in companies that you own the maximum amount of shares in.

When purchasing a share, you will put in an order that will be processed during the next 10 minutes. Unless someone bought the share before you, you have ordered too many shares, or you somehow could not afford the share, ownership of the share bought is transferred to you upon processing of the order. If someone else has ordered the same share before you, you will receive another share of the same kind if more than one is available. If not, your money will simply be refunded.

When purchasing a share of which more than one have been put on the market, you will automatically receive the share in that company that has been for sale for the longest amount of time, not necessarily the specific share you clicked to purchase. This is to make share trading, agreeing to purchase each others' shares to gain profits and/or stock points, harder. Share trading is not allowed in Tycoon Online.

## Selling stocks

To sell a share, go to your "Shares" page. Click the share or shares you want to sell, once you have selected all you want to sell choose "Put out for sale". Once you do this, the shares will appear on the list of stocks for sale. If someone buys your share before you are able to withdraw it, the share is sold, and its ownership transferred to the buyer.

The money you earn from selling a share equals the value of the share at the time it is sold - not its value when it is put out for sale.

When you put a share for sale, it takes 30-300 minutes before it appears on the stock market and is available for purchase. This is to prevent players from "trading" lucrative shares with each other.

You can earn stock points when other players purchase your shares, see 3.4 Stock points.

Players also have the option to sell any shares to the bank at any time, but in order to offset it's investment risk, the bank is only willing to pay up to 80% of the current share value. No stock points are gained when selling shares to the bank. Shares with a risk class greater than 1 will be discounted an additional 10% per increase in risk class. During the last week of the round, the bank's psychic accountants start feeling uneasy and begin discounting the price they will pay for shares by an additional 5% per day. So by the last day of the round, the bank will pay 50% for a risk class 1 share, 10% for a risk class 5, etc.
Shares will be automatically sold at the end of a round and income invested.

## The stockpile

The **stockpile** is the pool of funds used to pay dividends to your shareholders. To see how much money is currently in a company's stockpile, click one of its shares and look under "Company information".

Any time you sell goods (to the bank, on the market, or in shops) or services (in offices), 10 percent of the sale price is deducted from the amount you receive. Most of this money goes into your stockpile.

The 10 percent deduction will **not** go to the stockpile if you buy goods from the market and resell them on the market or to the bank. This is to prevent players from 'churning' goods in the market queue just to create unnaturally high dividend payouts. In this case, the 10 percent deduction is simply lost.

## Dividends

**Dividends** are paid to all shareholders from a company's stockpile at 06:00 every Sunday. You can receive a dividend from 2 of your own company's shares as long as they are in your top 50 highest valued shares.

While you can own as many shares as you would like, you only receive dividends from the 50 top valued shares that you own. Your own company's shares count when determining what shares you receive dividends from.

Each eligible share receives a dividend of 2 percent of the amount in the stockpile. There is a 20 percent tax charged on all dividends received, which goes to the Bank.

Stockpile funds not paid out as dividends carry over to the following week, up to a limit of 50 000 iKr. Any excess unpaid funds are lost.

To see how much dividend your own company has paid, click the "Dividends" link on your "Shares" page.

How much dividend do you receive?
15 000 / 50 = 300 iKr per stock.
2 x 300 = 600 iKr total.
There is a 20% tax on all dividend payments. How much will this be?
600 iKr x 0.2 = 120 iKr total.
When the tax has been paid, how much money do you receive?
600 iKr - 120 iKr = 480 iKr. You receive 480 iKr's worth of dividend.

Please note that you can only receive dividends if you have a company.

## Stock price

The price of a stock changes every day. The first week after a company has been founded, its stock is worth 1/50 of the company's company value. After this, it rises by 1% of a company's increase to its company value. In addition, it gains a percentage increase in value in relation to your climb or fall in C-ranking, subject to a maximum of +/-25% per day. Companies who win a weekly award will see an additional 10% increase in share price.

Below follow some examples to better illustrate how the stock values change:

What is the value of your company's shares?
8 000 / 50 = 160 iKr.

How much will your company's shares increase in value?
7 000 x 0.01 = 70 iKr.
During the same day, you climbed from C-Rank 500 to C-Rank 480.
How does this affect the share rate?
(500 - 480) / 500 = 20/500 = 4% climb in C-Rank
2 500 x 0.04 = 100 iKr.
What is then the new value of your company's shares?
2 500 + 70 + 100 = 2 670 iKr.

*Hint:* When buying shares, consider the dividend you receive from them more than their price. A share being expensive does not mean it will give good dividend.

*Hint:* When considering buying a share, check the company's risk class by entering the company's profile (shares on the shares page are also colour coded based on risk). A risk class of 1 means that the owner of the company is regularly online to handle his enterprise. A risk class of more than 1 means the owner is less regularly checking in on his company, and this often results in money losses and bankruptcy.

Risk class 2 begins at 2 days (Orange)

Risk class 3 begins at 4 days (Orange)

Risk class 4 begins at 7 days (Red)

Risk class 5 begins at 10 days (Red)

*Hint:* At the end of the round, all shares you own are automatically sold to the bank for a reduced price. However, you will not gain any S points for these shares. Make sure to sell them at some time during the roundm to get the full price and S points. It is wise to sell only a few at a time because the value of your shares will increase with time.

*Hint:* If your share rate is high, and you have not sold any of your company's shares, you will most likely not receive much dividend from other shares you own because your own shares count toward the 50 highest valued shares that gain you dividend. Holding on to your shares when they have risen in value cripples your chances at climbing the share ranking.

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