Getting Started In The Stock Market

Say What?!

What if I told you that you can turn 15,000 Neopoints into 100,000 Neopoints through a simple game right here on Neopets? You don’t need to gamble your life away, or spend hours on flash games to do it. All you need to do is sit and wait for a while. You may think I’m making things up, but I assure you there is an easy way to do it.

The Neopian Stock Market is one of the most underrated ways to make Neopoints. This is a shame, because it has the potential to make you very rich; it just takes a while. Once you start playing and setting up your portfolio, the Stock Market is one of the easiest ways to earn money for that Paint Brush you’ve been eyeing, or funding your Codestone habit.

“Great!” you declare, excited at the prospect of rolling in a pile of wealth, “Let’s get started!”

Not so fast. There are a few things to keep in mind before rushing in and buying up stocks.

1. The most important thing to know is this: The stock market takes a long time. It can take months or even years to see a huge payoff like the one above. Even getting started may take you several months. You’ll need to invest NP, time, and patience… but it will pay off.

2. You have to spend money in order to get started. The minimum amount of Neopoints you should expect to spend each day is 15,000 Neopoints. This is because you can buy 1000 shares per day, but the cheapest price you can buy them at is 15 NP. If this is beyond your price range, try playing games and doing your dailies. You will make enough to spend here in no time.

With those things in mind, do you still want to get started? The Stock Market can reward you with lots of Neopoints for very little daily effort. I encourage you to give it a try. Here are the very basics you should follow when starting your stock portfolio:

Buying Your First Shares

1. First, you’ll want to open the Stock Market page. You can either go to the Games Room and search “Stock Market” or simply follow this link: //www.neopets.com/stockmarket.phtml

2. Once you reach this page, click on “Buy” from the toolbar links under the running head. Don’t worry; we aren’t buying anything yet. On this page, you should see a box above the Scorchio with the words “Ticker Symbol”. Below those words is a link that says “(click to list)”; click that next.

3. Get used to looking at this page; this is where you will see all of the companies you can buy shares for. There is a lot of information and numbers, but don’t panic! You only care about two columns on the table right now; “Ticker” and “Curr”. The first one is the abbreviation of the company you put in to buy shares from it. The second is the current asking price per share.

4. Look down the “Curr” column until you come across a number in the 15-17NP range. Ideally, you want something that is going for 15NP. In the event you do not see anything at that price range, go stretch, take a walk, do your dailies, and come back in an hour. Eventually, you should see a price on the list change to 15NP. If you’re really in a hurry, you can pick a 16 or 17 NP share, it’ll just be more expensive.

5. When you find a stock you want to buy, look left under the “Ticker” column to see which company is going for that price. Let’s say it’s “UNIB”. Make a note of the Ticker name and press the back button on your browser.

6. Back on the “Buy” page, enter the Ticker name of your company into the “Ticker Symbol” field. In our example, it’s “UNIB”. In the next field, select the number of shares you want to buy. Usually you want to go for 1000 shares, which is your daily maximum. Make sure you have enough NP on hand to afford the purchase! If it’s 15 NP and you’re buying 1000 shares, the total price will be 15,000 NP. Once you’re sure, click “Buy Shares”.

7. Your browser should redirect you to your Portfolio page. It will display the company you picked, the number of shares you now own, how much you paid, and its current market value. Congratulations! You’ve taken the first step toward building your portfolio.

The Next Days

1. Follow the same process as above once per day, but start diversifying your profile. Let’s say you bought UNIB for 15NP on your first day. It’s still at 15NP on your second day, but so is BUZZ. You want to invest in as many different companies as possible in order to have the widest net of profits, so buy BUZZ instead.

2. Over the next few days, start paying attention to your portfolio and the market value of your stocks. Look under “Current Price” to see how much a stock you own is selling for. If a stock starts increasing in price, you may wish to sell it. Pick a point at which you want to start selling your stocks and do so accordingly.

After about 30 days, you will have invested about 450k in the Stock Market and should have about 30,000 shares, assuming you haven’t sold any yet. Now you notice some of your stocks have gone down, while others have gone up. Don’t worry about the stocks that went down in value; they’ll go up eventually. What you care about are the stocks that are doing well. If you notice one price has gone up dramatically from what you paid, it might be time to sell it. The process is pretty simple.

Selling Shares

1. If you are absolutely sure you are happy with the profit selling your shares will give you, you can start selling! This is how you will actually make NP through the Stock Market.

2. Let’s say a few weeks have passed, and UNIB is now at 30 NP a share, which double your investment. If that sounds like a good profit to you, go to your Portfolio page and scroll until you reach the company you wish to sell. Next to the picture of the company in the upper left-hand corner is a little gray triangle. Click on it!

3. This should expand the company’s section. Under the normal information you should see a table which tells you how many shares you have, what you paid for them, and their current market value. If you have 3000 shares in UNIB, for example, it should list three rows of 1000 shares. Under the “Sell” column, type in how many shares you wish to sell in each row.

4. At the very bottom of your Portfolio should be a “Sell Shares” button. If you are absolutely sure you put in the correct numbers and you really wish to sell them, click it. You may also have a PIN to enter should you wish to set it up here.

5. You should be redirected to the sales page, which will list the shares you have sold and the amount of NP you now have on-hand. I hope it’s a lot! Nigel the Chia does charge you a fee of 20NP every time you sell stocks (no matter how many you sell), but that’s chump change compared to what you should be making. Congratulations on selling your first stocks!

Now that you’ve gotten started on building your Neopian empire, here are some basic tips and strategies to keep you going strong and successful!

Tips and Tricks

1. This is key: Buy Low, Sell High. If you spend 15,000 NP on a stock, but run out of patience and sell it when the stock is worth 13 NP per share, you will actually lose money! You never, ever want to sell a stock for less than you paid for it.

2. Pick a good sell point for you. If you want to see a steady turnover of Neopoints on your stock portfolio, a great point to start selling your stocks is at 30 NP. This means that you sell all or some of your stocks in a particular company when it reaches a value of 30 NP per share, meaning you have basically doubled the 15,000 NP you initially put in. This will help you fund your portfolio and make you some nice NP on the side. Personally, I wait until a stock reaches 100NP in value, which takes much longer. That way I make 85k or more per 1000 shares and have lots of time to build my portfolio up.

3. When I started putting my Neopoints into the Stock Market, the 15k per day price tag seemed a little high. Just look at it from a different perspective and you may see why it’s worth it. Pretend your stock portfolio is actually your Neopian Bank account. If you put 15,000 NP in your Bank, you collect a little bit of interest on it. Perhaps you make about 800 NP per year on that 15k. However, if you put it into the Stock Market you have the potential to make 80,000 or more on that investment in the same time period. Think of the Stock Market as a Bank account you can’t always withdraw from, but with a much better interest rate!

4. There is very little risk in the Stock Market, but bankruptcy has occurred in the past. This means that a particular stock reaches a value of 0NP and you lose all of the money you invested into it. Sound scary? The last time a stock went bankrupt was in 2004, 11 years ago! That doesn’t mean it won’t happen, but it is not very likely. Just keep bankruptcy in mind as a potential risk.

5. Keep in mind that, unlike the real life Stock Market, what other people are buying or selling does not have an effect on the price. So if everyone in Neopia buys 1000 shares of UNIB, the price of UNIB will not go up accordingly. So pick whatever stock you want to buy!

6. Finally, participate in the Battleground of the Obelisk! You can make NP by fighting in the Battledome, but should certain factions win, you get to pick a boon as well. You want to side with The Sway or The Thieves Guild, as one of their boons is “Cheaper By The Dozen”. It lets you buy shares for as low as 10NP while it’s active! This means you only have to invest 10k in the Stock Market per day, and you can turn an even larger profit! If neither of these factions are available, The Awakened have a random chance to give this boon as well. Just make sure to actually participate in the Battledome, otherwise you will not get to select a boon.

This guide is meant to give you the information to get started in the Neopian Stock Market using a specific strategy, but there are some other strategies that people use as well. I recommend these only for people already experienced in the Stock Market.

Other Stock Market Strategies

1. Focusing on a specific stock: Some individuals only want to collect shares for a specific company or two so that, when that company’s share price goes up, they make a massive profit. You can play this way if you want, but should that company go bankrupt you will lose your entire investment. A diverse profile lets you invest in almost every company, so you can take advantage of every price peak that occurs.

2. Splitting your 1000 daily shares among multiple stocks. This is a perfectly valid way to play; I just prefer to put all of them into one company. But if, for example, there are two companies you want to invest in, you can instead opt to put in 500 shares for each of them. It won’t be as large of a profit when the stock does go up, but this will diversify your portfolio quickly.

3. Buying high-profile companies. This is a very risky way to play, though it has the potential to turn a profit. Just know that you are likely to lose money as well. If UNIB, for example, is selling for a massive 500NP per share, you can still buy it! Often, high-profile companies that are going for a lot tend to fluctuate wildly in price. If you buy a few 500NP shares banking on the likelihood that UNIB fluctuates to maybe 550NP per share, you can make a quick profit. But it’s also likely that UNIB will fluctuate to a lower price as well, which would result in a loss. Since these shares are so expensive, it costs a lot to invest in them, and you do not have a guarantee of making a nice profit like with the strategy described in the guide.

One last thing to note: you can get an avatar for playing the Stock Market! Simply view your Portfolio when you have 1,000,000 NP invested into the Stock Market and you should get it. Using the method described in the guide, it should take you a little over 2 months to reach this amount.

Making Neopoints off of The Stock Market can be a daunting task, but it’s an easy process once you get started. Depending on how you play it, stocks have the potential to give you millions of NP in time. Remember to be patient, stick to a sell point that you are satisfied with, and reference this guide if you need any reminders. It may be years from now, but if you stick with it you will eventually see the fruits of your investment. When you make that first big sale, congratulations! Go and buy you and your pets something nice. You’ve earned it! Until then, good luck!