I wish I knew what was going on at the Stock Exchange

[manole]

Before someone starts to give me advice on how to get rich off the stock exchange, I already know how to do that. I mean I wish I knew what the Corporate/Company stocks were correlated to in the actual game.

For example, NMMC was at 100, so I bought about 30,000 shares. 15 minutes later, I'm traveling between sectors and I pull up the stock exchange menu, and I see that NMMC is at 22, so I sell everything and I make about 6M profit, but what actually happened that caused NMMC to fluctuate? I want to know because it's actually interesting. Did a Yaki fleet attack them and caused them to lose a big shipment of Nividium? Was one of their stations rebuilt?

If the Corporate/Company screen had some sort of reports about the companies, or the player had at least some understanding of what caused the stock to move, then maybe the stock exchange would be more useful and offer some immersion to the player, rather than a quick "I need to outfit another Titan" button.

[Falcrack]

This is what I have been begging to know the answer to, but no one so far has actually provided a satisfactory answer, despite repeated requests for one.

So for the tons of companies we see on the listing, are there actual ships flying around in the game that correspond to these companies? Is their market price dictated by how successful these dudes are, or are their prices really just dictated by nothing more sophisticated than a random number generator? Would it be possible to ever research these companies, or is the only criterion on whether to buy them based on "buy low, sell high"?

[manole]

This is what I have been begging to know the answer to, but no one so far has actually provided a satisfactory answer, despite repeated requests for one.

So for the tons of companies we see on the listing, are there actual ships flying around in the game that correspond to these companies? Is their market price dictated by how successful these dudes are, or are their prices really just dictated by nothing more sophisticated than a random number generator? Would it be possible to ever research these companies, or is the only criterion on whether to buy them based on "buy low, sell high"?

It's not just the number generator, because I took a glance at the script editor, and while I don't really understand what exactly is going on, I noticed that for the Corporations (terracorp, otas etc) the script calculates the number of ships/ number of stations and the amount * average price of all the wares carried by those ships. I wish someone with actual knowledge of scripting posted the formulas somewhere, although this is not what I'm asking in the OP. I want some sort of news report. Ideally, the Galactic News System from XTC would be integrated and you could read something like

"In the past stazura, the pirates destroyed X ships belonging to the Terracorp company and stole plundered Y amount of crystals, a total worth of Z credits. Terracorp assured it's investors it will take measures and dispatched 2 Heavy Centaurs to patrol the sector."

[em3e3]

For example, NMMC was at 100, so I bought about 30,000 shares. 15 minutes later, I'm traveling between sectors and I pull up the stock exchange menu, and I see that NMMC is at 22, so I sell everything and I make about 6M profit, but what actually happened that caused NMMC to fluctuate? I want to know because it's actually interesting. Did a Yaki fleet attack them and caused them to lose a big shipment of Nividium? Was one of their stations rebuilt?

Just to clarify, I think you're referring to their 'index', and not the share price. They are basically inversely proportional.

Seems like the share price should go up (and the index go down) as the company acquires/produces more assets - and conversely, the price should go down as they lose assets. However, the prices seem to be more related to supply/demand, and the 'demand' for the corporations is set at some artificially high level. This means when they lose assets, their 'supply', the stock price goes up.

[kylania]

Buy at a high index, sell at a low index. That's basically all there is to it.

[Ripskar]

It's not just the number generator, because I took a glance at the script editor, and while I don't really understand what exactly is going on, I noticed that for the Corporations (terracorp, otas etc) the script calculates the number of ships/ number of stations and the amount * average price of all the wares carried by those ships.

Share price goes up when the wares are sold, share price goes down when wares are acquired. Exactly the same as your own player account.
divide total value of company account by number of shares and you have the share price.

[Master of the Blade]

So why, when a corp HQ dies, does the index plummet? Or doesn't it? I definitely remember Jonferco hitting index 0 when its HQ went poof.

[Ripskar]

It counts as the station selling all its wares, thus the share price goes astronomical.

[Master of the Blade]

Yeah, from the rest of the thread I was leaning towards that explanation. Still weird that that happens despite most of the HQs basically not selling anything.

[Melted_Igloo]

It would be nice of company listed all their wares on the exchange somewhere
You can do all kinds of nasty stuff with that information,

Also it would be cool if hostile takeovers were possible and you automatically got part of the companys assets as a reward

[kardgar]

The loss of their assets pushes the index up. I destroyed the JonFerco Military Titan, Cerebus, and two Centuars in Belt of Ag. and once they were destroyed the Index went to 100 from 50. A few minutes later (SETA) a new Jonferco Military Fleet spawned and their Index dropped to 0.