Happy 14th Birthday Neopian Stock Market!

During my time on Neopets, I've had the pleasure of hanging out on the STC (Stock Tips Chat), and have learned quite a few interesting things about the stock market. I'd like to share them with you today, on its 14th anniversary.

The secret stock icons

All stocks have a stock icon that represents them. For example, this one is for AAVL:

But did you know there are three icons that have never been used?

Maybe TNT was planning on making new stocks for these symbols but never got around to it. But hang on a second... I can see why they may not have used the last icon; it appears to be the 28th stock icon created (according to the URL). The 27th is the last stock icon to be used, by BODA, JCK, and KSON. But let's not forget about the first two, which uses 1 and 3 in their URL respectively. This means that they are two of the oldest stock icons ever created, so why weren't they used?

Some say there are secret stocks out there. Maybe they use these icons... But who really knows?

What do you mean it's a joke?

The Neopian Stock Market is a joke game! In one of the very first editorial questions about the stock market (editorial 97), there is the following question:

"I read somewhere you said cars don't exist in Neopia and Neopets don't drive but in the haunted woods in the haunted house, that choose your own adventure game, there is a car, and a Neopet is driving it. Also in a game I played once I remember there was also a car, um... so I'm confused now. Can you make me not confused anymore?"

Perhaps they were talking about the car that Nigel drives? The response is:

"Ok, cars don't exist in Neopia. Nor do laptops, computers or anything super high-tech (except in the Space Station). Some of our games are just jokes (such as the stock market) and have little parody images like Nigel in his car. These games are separate from the fantasy world that is Neopia, they are just on the site for fun."

Just a joke? I'm not sure how I feel about that.

Not all stocks are created equal

POWR (Power-X Corp.) used to be called POWL (Powlex Corporation). One of the original creators of Neopets was Adam Powell, and the name POWL was very similar to his last name. The name was most likely changed after he was no longer associated with the company. The old Neopets stock help page still makes mention of POWL here:

//www.neopets.com/help/stockhelp.phtml

This page is rather outdated. It says that we are allowed to sell up to 1,000 shares daily, makes mention of the old stock market system when prices were affected by users, and mentions that each company chooses a combination of 2 to 4 letters apparently forgetting about EEEEE.

What's so special about the new ones?

When the stock market first officially launched, there were 49 stocks. Of the seven stocks that have been created after the initial beginning of the stock market (ACFI, HUW, LDSC, MPC, SMUG, TNPT, VPTS), none of them have gone bankrupt. Perhaps TNT didn't want to get rid of something they had just created. And if so, how long do you think that grace period would last? Are they now in danger?! Oh don't fret; even though bankruptcies haven't officially ended, most people don't worry about stocks going bankrupt nowadays. The last stock to go bankrupt was nearly a decade ago! But, what if...

What if bankruptcies and creations had continued?

For the following calculations used, the beginning of the stock market is August 24, 2000, and the current day is August 24, 2014. This makes the stock market 5,114 days old.

Since the creation of the stock market there have been seven additional stocks created (we won't be looking at the 49 original stocks). The last stocks created were ACFI and TNPT back on January 31, 2005 (1,621 days into the lifespan of the stock market). This means that on average, there was a new stock added every 232 days. If we had continued at this rate there would have been about 15 more new stocks created today, or 22 in total.

Bankruptcies are even more common. Not only did more happen, but they happened in a shorter time span. 13 stocks have gone bankrupt in total (BBBB, BODA, BOOM, FUZZ, HAKA, JCK, KATE, NEGG, NTV, SILL, SSGS, TCAG, TEFV), the last of which was JCK way back on November 15, 2004 (1,544 days into the lifespan of the stock market). This means that on average, there was a bankruptcy every 119 days. If we had continued at this rate there would have been a whopping 30 more bankruptcies today, or 43 in total.

There are 43 stocks currently available to buy today, but if bankruptcies and creations had continued at the rate they did so many years ago... We would be left with only 28 stocks today. Crazy!

The Neopian Stock Market is more than 24 times better than the National Neopian Bank.

Why? Well, to put it simply, the bank offers a maximum of 12.5% return on investment, while typical sales in the stock market begin at 300%. 300 divided by 12.5 = 24. I've been recording my investments with the stock market since 2006, and in that time I've made a return on invest of 374%. Now take that with a grain of salt; keep in mind that of course some people could make more, some could make less, and not all years are going to be the same. Even keeping all of that in mind, though, it's very common for people to make sales of 300% or higher. Now of course it can take a while to earn a profit and your NP is tied up while you wait, but as a percentage the stocks beat the bank every time.

Eventually you'll get to a point in the stock market where your portfolio is so large that on average, you're able to earn about one million NP a month! It takes about 300,000 to 400,000 shares, but I assure you it's possible. Let's say that you're consistently able to earn one million NP a month from the stock market. That's the same as collecting 33,333 NP in bank interest everyday (assuming a 30 day month, and not compounding the interest to make things easier). In order to collect that amount of interest from the bank, you would need a little over 97 million NP.

Use them both!

Now don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that you should only use the stock market and not the bank. You should definitely use both. But if you haven't tried out the stock market yet, what are you doing? It's one of the oldest games in Neopia, and it's deceptively easy; everyone should definitely give it a try. It will take time and you'll need a lot of patience, but it will pay off much more than if you were to use just the bank. Happy 14th birthday stock market!

If you'd like to learn more about the stock market you could head on over to the Stock Tips Chat. It's full of wonderful people who are willing to help as long as you're patient:

//www.neopets.com/neoboards/boardlist.phtml?board=12

I've also written a stock guide linked below, or you could contact me through neomail. I've been helping people with the stock market and other parts of the site for years now:

//www.neopets.com/~SilverCyanide2