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Getting Started: Written by member bo la tengo with notes courtesy of sjdevil.
*Admin note: You'll also want to read up on our FAQ To build your ports most effectively, buy the hot players in season - especially when they do something while they're playing. Choose a good live scoreboard for up-to-the-second info on the games. Other options include the message boards, where players often go to ask questions and to ham it up. If the board is lively, then someone is usually filling the others in on who's just hit a homer, scored a goal etc. You can just make your buys at the end of the evening after all the games have finished - but you'll miss a lot of moo (known as "moo", or upward movement) that way. Or you can pre-buy certain stocks you think will do well that day/week/month. That method has its own risks, especially for a newbie (e.g. losses for pitchers and goalies can often result in much pain to your J$ ports). Back to the live action. When a player does something significant - goal, TD, home run, etc. - buy him in all the ports you want by clicking on the Market link, selecting the player from the appropriate area and clicking on the "Max" button. By the way, always buy the maximum amount of stock in an athlete - God hates cowards :) You'll then see the stock's price rise as others buy it as well. You'll also be charged a fee of 2.02020202....% of the total J$ price of each transaction - both buys and sells - or 2.03% for practical purposes here. This may seem like splitting hairs, but it can become significant for a high volume of shares on a high-priced stock. At 9 a.m. Eastern time the next morning, the dividends (divis) are given to the stocks that have performed the best according to the formulae established by Orren (aka SiteWolf). The players whose performance most outpaces their per/game projections should get the best divis. For example, a home run by Ray Durham (durra) is bound to get a far better dividend (divi) than a homer by Barry Bonds (bonba) because: durra = projected for 17 HR in 162 games bonba = projected for 53 HR in 162 games durra's achievement is obviously more rare for him, therefore the rarity creates a higher reward. However, if durra also does something bad - commits an error, gets caught stealing, etc. - that will drop his expected divi. If a player makes mistakes - strikeout, fumble, double bogey, etc. - think about how that might affect his forthcoming divi. You might sell him immediately or switch him just before divi time for a player you believe might get a better divi. Or you might stay put. If you don't use "autosell" (where the system sells stocks for you at divi time) you can still sell up until noon Eastern and get the 9 a.m. price; this 9 a.m.-to-noon zone is called "the window". This enables people across a number of different time zones to get the top price before the post-9a.m. selloff creates downward pressure on the price (anti-moo). ALERT: If you do not sell your stocks until after noon, you will LOSE via anti-moo a good chunk of the moo and divi which has accrued to the stock. Losing J$ is not a good thing for a newbie. Review: 2. Buy those players whose performace most outpaces their per/game (per/round, per/race, per/x) projections. 3. Despite the transaction fees, don't be afraid to sell off a player to buy another who has surpassed his own projections even more - but be careful. 4. Make sure to sell all your buys between 8 a.m. and noon Eastern time the next day. 5. Repeat steps 1-4... at least until the point where you might consider long-terming some stocks. For a newbie, though, the first while should be spent getting that buy/sell churn in your ports to obtain the maximum amount of expansion possible. You'll need the money later if, for instance, you want to buy some stocks which are threatening to "split". This is a brief primer to get you started in J$. If there are things that you need to know or have clarified for you, click on the Forums link, go to either the Newbies or Jockstocks Today sections and post questions. There are LOTS of friendly people - and the occasional pain in the butt - who will respond to you. More notes: 1) You can't purchase more than 10% of your total portfolio value in 1 stock. 2) You can't purchase more than 10,000 shares of a given stock. For you newbies, you will run into restriction #1 above first. Since the IPO price of a stock is $20 and that should be its lowest price (there are exceptions for a handful of poor performers), you generally won't reach the 10K-share limit (restriction #2) until your portfolio reaches the $2-million mark. Until then, you will be buying 10 stocks a night (or each time you play). Make them count! A quick-and-dirty method of buying is to go to the Market tab and check out the Top-30. Be careful, though! Sometimes the buy/sell activity may not be related to an individual's performance and those using this page to choose their buys may unwittingly cause a false run and the result may be a negadivi for a lot of folks (referred to as "sheep"). So, always check the box scores. Getting the best divis will certainly raise your portfolio value, but you will receive further increases if you are able to purchase a stock before the moo gathers steam. If you are one of the first to buy the stock after a guy hits a HR, you will have him at a lower price than your competitors and hence will make a bigger jump in your portfolio value. A little comment on splits: don't worry about them now. You don't have enough money at this point to consider them. But as an "FYI", this is how it works. When the price on a stock reaches $400 it will split 10:1 ...and here's the kicker... you get to keep all the shares even if it is more than the 10K-share restriction! If the stock splits again, that raises the ratio to 50:1 (500K shares held vs. the 10K-share buy max)! ...and so on with each successive split. So, in general, the best reason to LT ("long term" hold) a stock is when it is about to split and then from that point after. WARNING: If you sell all your shares after a split, you will then only be allowed to buy back the 10K-share maximum! To maximize the number of shares held in a split, you'll need to be able to buy as much as you can before it does. So, unless you are able to buy 10K (or a significantly high number of) shares of a stock about to split, you won't reap the benefits. Also, you'll want to leave some money available after buying a split to continue daytrading and grow your portfolio. So, the bottom line is you have some time before you need to concern yourself with splits, but you should have an idea what you want to do when a split opportunity arrives and you have the cash (this is subjective, but you'll probably want to have at least $10 million to daytrade with). Now another reason to hold a stock is when its divi doesn't cover the
commissions; i.e. the Net Change % is less than 2.03% at 9AM. In this
case, you might be better off holding onto a stock until it goes over
the cover percentage.. However, the catch is the player may have a bad
performance the next day and you may be stuck going the other way. Give
yourself a stop-loss %; if the stock drops below that percentage, dump
it and take the hit. |
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