Exposing Neopia's Darkest Secrets: The Stock Market

Your investigative reporters, half_moon and dirtyredemption, are here to tell you that there's more to the worlds of Neopia than meets the eye. Beyond those pristine white clouds around Faerieland, there is a darkness looming (and we're not talking about Darigan). Recently, dirtyredemption and I have decided to reveal the monstrosities we have discovered during our investigations into some of Neopia's most famous neopets and even our worlds' most recognizable institutions.

Today, we're going to start you off small: we've discovered information involving the stock market that will make you wish you hadn't purchased that POWR stock.

Have you ever wondered how certain Lupes know which stocks to buy and when? Or how about when everyone else but you seems to decide to sell their stock out of the blue, leaving you high and dry? If you think that there is more to it than simply being unlucky or cursed by the Pant Devil, you'd be right. We decided to go straight to the source to find out what makes the Stock Market tick: the stock broker Chia.

"What's the secret to making money with the stock market? How do you know when a particular stock is going to go up or down?" we asked first. (Well, technically we said hello first. We're not rude, after all.)

The Chia gave us a funny look, straightening his already impeccable black tie and suit coat. "There is no secret. That's part of the point. You investigate the companies and hope that your investments pay off in the end. The more people buy from a company, the more that company's stock increases." Sure, that's all there is to it. We didn't buy it. This was not going to turn out like the "Who lays the egg for the giant omelette?" incident. We decided to investigate further on our own.

One of the requirements for being a crack investigative journalist is that you have to be wary for these kinds of traps in order to warn unsuspecting Neopians before they fall prey to them. We noticed that the turns of the stock market directly coincide with the weather forecast. You might laugh now, but soon you will not be laughing. In fact, you may want to grab a pad of paper and a pencil in order to take notes, because this will save your stock market career.

"It must be a code," my partner told me astutely. I agreed, so we concentrated on deciphering the code. I suggested that we ask the Lenny Conundrum Lenny for advice, but my idea was vetoed. We decided we didn't want to get involved with him - but that's technically a matter for another article. Besides, he could be involved with fixing the stock market. Considering how difficult the code was to decipher, he was probably the one who came up with it.

Finally, we had a breakthrough. After many long hard hours of labor, staring at star charts, and looking at the Neopedia, we had it. If you read the weather forecast backwards, it tells you how to go about buying or selling stocks. The last word in the article always corresponds to the first stock (AAVL). The last letter tells you whether the stock will go up or down and the previous letters tell you how much. Here's how: If the last letter of the word is A-I, the stock will go down. If the last letter is R-Z, the stock will go up. And if the last letter is J-P, the stock will not change that day.

You're not done yet, though. You'd probably like to know whether the stock will increase/decrease by a piddling one neopoint per share or if it will crash and burn, or alternately skyrocket. You now need to assign the rest of the letters in the word their corresponding numerical value, where A=1, B=2, and so on through Z, which is equal to 26. Then add the letters up. Find the Neopedia article that corresponds to your number. (Navigate to //www.neopets.com/neopedia.phtml?neopedia_id=??&criteria= where you replace the ?? with the number you just calculated.) If nothing comes up for that number, add the digits in your number. For example, to reduce article 1503, you add 1+5+0+3 = 9.

Now stop for a bite. This is mostly for luck; also, if it takes you as long to do math as it does us, you've probably hit the starvation stage by now.

Once that's done, return to the Neopedia article. Check to see to which land it pertains. (If it does not address a specific world, treat it as relating to Neopia Central.)

Depending on the land, your stock will increase or decrease (see step one) based on the following formulas.

Neopia Central: Integrate the current average paint brush price from one to two.

Kreludor: the current air quality plus the current gravity divided by the authorization code to the Kreludor Mining Corp.

Terror Mountain: chance of winning something at the scratch card kiosk divided by the number of Neopets in the ice caves.

Faerieland: One of the trickier patterns to determine. The total cost of everything in the Hidden Tower divided by the average Poogle number of the top three finishers.

Lost Desert: The number of days (not years!) since King Coltzan passed away divided by the number of Desert Scarabs that can be seen in the vicinity.

Shenkuu: The number of river rafters who wiped out the day before.

Mystery Island: The number of syllables in the Island Mystic’s message multiplied by pi rounded to the thousandth place.

Meridell: Multiply the weight of the previous day’s marrow by the Greatest Common Factor (GCF) of subjects currently enslav- ...errrr, employed, by King Skarl.

Virtupets Space Station: Unknown. When I attempted to access the computer system, it shut down.

Now that you have been armed with the code, you can determine just how much you have lost as a result of this ploy! Keep this information in mind for your future stock endeavors.

Unfortunately, when we interviewed the Chia, we may have tipped him off that we were onto him and his tricks. When we returned to confront him with what we knew, he never seemed to be in his office. We were met with the following excuses from his assistant: he was "sewer surfing", "a Lupe ate his stock reports and he had to go replace them", and "did you know that Grundos actually built the pyramids in the Lost Desert? He's gone to investigate." We're not sure what makes him qualified for that last one; it sounds more like a job for, well, us.

Finally, we caught him in his office (and by caught, we mean that this time we tried his closed office door and discovered that he was not, in fact, scuba diving in Maraqua) and were able to confront him with what we'd learned.

"You two are crazy," he said. "Stop wasting my time." And that, folks, is how you know that every word we said is real. When people stop answering questions and start being rude, you know there's more to the situation than meets the eye.

By the time you read this article, they’ll be onto us. Dirtyredemption and I aren’t quite sure who they are yet, but as we hide in Geraptiku, we will keep an eye out for the culprit. Obviously, this code will be changed once the Stock Market Chia and whoever else is beyond this scheme realize how much we have deduced. Our advice is to invest in a calculator, a star chart, and some pain relievers; this next code will be a headache waiting to happen! Good luck!