User:Shrimpboom8

Foreword

Greetings! You've reached the domain of the legendary Hackerman! What's that? No you can't have my infinite knowledge of computer systems! Go bother someone else! If you'd like to talk finances however, you've come to the right place. May I present to you...

The Junior Associate's Guide to Stock Trading!

Big Disclaimer

The stock trading techniques listed below are not necessarily the best, or even good in general. DeShrimp Group Securities does not take any responsibility for damages of any kind incurred from the use of this advice. With that being said...

Introduction

If you’re reading this, chances are good you’ve recently been hired into DeShrimp Group Securities (if not, please disregard and destroy this message). Congratulations! You’re on your way to working for the most profitable investment firm aboard Space Station 13. Although you may completely lack experience or knowledge, this guide should address the latter of those problems.

What is the Stock Market?

The stock market is a trade hub for shares in given companies. The best way to think of the stock of an individual company is to think of a pie (a pie chart if you’re particularly suited to this organization). A share is an individual, and generally very, very small slice of this pie. The thing that makes these shares worthwhile is that as the company, the pie from which they originated, grows, so will the shares. This is where profit comes into the equation. By buying a stock and selling it later after it’s appreciated, you’ve just grown money. Naturally, it’s probably a very small change, unless you’ve invested thousands of credits into the company, but that will be addressed later.

Account Holders and You

The purpose of a bank or investment firm is not simply to hold money securely, but to take loans from ordinary people and invest them, then pay back the loans with interest. Having invested this money, the interest from the stock trading outweighs the interest paid to the account holder, and thus: we make money. But why take out loans when we could simply invest our own money? Simply enough, the more money we can invest, the more profit we can gain. Looking back to our pie analogy, think of an account as an individual slice, with our fees making up half of the pie. As the sum of these accounts grows, the fees get larger, and thus we’re making more money.

So how do I Get Accounts?

The short answer is: Ask people for money, write down who gave you how much, and get to trading. More specifically, walk around the station for the first few minutes of the shift and ask people if they’d like to invest. Your major targets will be the heads of staff, the quartermaster, and people with generally high starting wages, such as the engineering department. A typical marketing pitch might go as follows:

YOU: “Hello [occupation]. Would you be interested in opening an investment account with DeShrinp Group Securities?”
POTENTIAL CUSTOMER: “Hmm… Why should I?
Y: “Naturally, as [occupation] I’m sure you’ve got plenty of savings, but what if I told you those savings could grow on their own?
PC: “Sounds good, but how does it work?”
Y: “We get people to open accounts, invest their money, and pay back the profits!”
PC: “I’m almost convinced, but why shouldn’t I just invest my own money?”
Y: “As [occupation] you’ve probably got other things to do than sit around watching numbers change. Meanwhile, an account entitles you to a share of all the profits we make from trading, meaning that with dozens of active accounts, you’ve got a share in a multi-thousand credit industry!”
PC: “I’m sold! How much do I need to open an account?”

The Big Secret of Stock Trading

Chances are good you’ve already heard the phrase “Buy low, sell high” a million times. This is the major principle behind any kind of trading, but the thing to remember is this: If a stock is going up, it’s probably going to keep going up. Why trade in and out of the market constantly when you make more money by simply buying a strong stock and waiting? Aside from that, there’s a few other things to note:

• Make sure you account for the payroll. You don’t want to be handing out half your paycheck to account holders!
• Make sure to click around on the terminal every few seconds, the display won't update otherwise, and you don’t want to miss any important updates!
• Look for stocks with a consistent record of growth, buy in, and don’t sell them until you’ve got a good reason to.
• A bailout for a company can cause a huge rise in stock price. Try buying in immediately after a company is bailed out.
• A major member of a company being arrested is enough to dent that company’s stock prices, even if they're innocent. Get out and get back in once they’re back on the rise, or change to a different stock altogether.
• Product demos and releases are unpredictable, but no change is generally the most common result.

Cashing Out

So you’ve been trading for a whole shift and the shuttle’s been called. That or someone wants to take their money out early, or even put more in. At this point, drop everything. Sell every share you’ve purchased and calculate your profits. Then calculate each account balance as follows:

1. Subtract your total investments from your current amount, this will give you your profit
2. Put half the profit into the company pool. (Keep this if it’s not the shuttle.)
3. Calculate the percentage of the remaining profit (hereafter, the payout) to give to each account holder.
   1. Account’s share = Payout * (Account balance/Starting balance)
4. Update each account holder’s balance accordingly.
5. Pay out the balance of each account to their holders.
   1. Withdraw your entire bank account at once and split up account balances into separate stacks in your briefcase to make this easier.

And that’s your first shift done! Get ready for the next one, hopefully doing better than the last one. Rinse and repeat until promotion.