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mrswooey — 2008-03-25T20:11:42+00:00

huge game box!

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mrswooey — 2008-03-25T20:11:00+00:00

stock cubes!

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mrswooey — 2008-03-25T20:10:22+00:00

playing piece

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mrswooey — 2008-03-25T20:09:46+00:00

playing piece

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mrswooey — 2008-03-25T20:08:37+00:00

playing piece

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mrswooey — 2008-03-25T20:08:05+00:00

playing piece

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mrswooey — 2008-03-25T20:06:56+00:00

sample of cards

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mrswooey — 2008-03-25T20:06:21+00:00

cheques

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mrswooey — 2008-03-25T20:05:46+00:00

cover of rules leaflet

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mrswooey — 2008-03-25T20:05:09+00:00

score sheet

Thread: Re: Review of Stockmarket!

bartacus — 2006-09-26T20:28:19+00:00

Great review of a brilliant game. Played it all my upper 6th year as Jordan Games ran a competition for school economics classes in the Kent/Essex area.

Bought 2 copies last year on e-bay and the game is still as good as ever, the gameplay still feels fresh and contemporary (even if the listed companies aren't!). My brothers had never played it and both loved it.

My only criticism of the game is the debenture card can be too much of a game winner, especially if one player gets it twice in succession. The share suspend card can be used to cancel it out but it's down to the luck of the draw on the cards.

Well worth hunting down a copy on e-bay.

Thread: Review of Stockmarket!

Neil Palfreyman — 2006-04-13T17:26:03+00:00

Introduction

Published in 1987 in the UK by Jordan Games, Stockmarket is a bit of an un-sung “Classic,” at least in my opinion.

It’s simple card based mechanic simulates trading in the UK Stockmarket in the 1980s in a reasonably realistic and therefore educational though thoroughly entertaining manner.

Players become Traders on the London Stock Exchange and use the knowledge of cards in their hand and observation of what everyone else is investing in (or not) to decide which Companies will rise and fall in value and therefore which to invest in or sell before a crash in price.

Much of it’s appeal is nostalgic and it captures a flavour of those heady days of low house prices, yuppies and red braces by featuring companies such as Saatchi & Saatchi, Trusthouse Forte and Thames Television.

The full list of Companies - Trusthouse Forte, United Biscuits, Legal & General, Thames, Saatchi & Saatchi and NatWest - represent a range of low to high risk investments across several market sectors.

The cautious investor can also hold cash, but is unlikely to do well by doing just that. A successful investor can build a large shareholding to become a Company Director or even Chairman to further influence the fortunes of their Company.

Of course, “greed is good” on the Stockmarket so the player with the most money at the end of the game, both in cash and share holding value wins the game.

Components
An attractive, green and white “Monopoly-style” box with a moulded plastic insert holds an assortment of high quality components that have aged well, considering that the game is nearly 20 years old.

The playing board or “Trading Floor” is hexagon shaped - one side for each of up to six traders. Each side is further divided up into six “lanes” which are used to hold the players accumulated blocks of shares – one lane per Company. The board is unusual, in being vinyl coated. This is both colourful and gives a hard wearing silky finish that looks as good as the day it was bought and, according to the box, is “both Champagne and blood proof!

The 108 cards, used to control stock and currency movement, are printed on cards resembling standard playing cards in both size and card stock.

The shares themselves are represented by coloured plastic blocks in Ivory (1,000 shares) Brown (5,000 shares) Silver (10,000 shares) and Black (50,000 shares.)

Cash, or “Promissory Notes” are printed in colour on thick paper and are in seven denominations from £500 to £1,000,000.

A generous pad of 100 scoring sheets, used to show opening prices and to keep track of price fluctuations, is included together with an order form for buying additional pads. Price: £2.75 for four, “allow 28 days for delivery.” Something tells me I may be waiting a while longer if I sent it off!

Six Monopoly-style gold plastic playing pieces in the shape of a Jaguar Car, Champagne bottle/bucket, Race Horse, Mansion, Private Jet and Yacht may be used to represent the trappings of any traders successful enough to become Company Chairman later in the game.

The contents are rounded off by no less than three identical rule books. There are multiple copies because they contain a “Ready Reckoner” table used for calculating the money needed (or gained) to buy (or sell) an amount, or “block” of shares as the price moves.

Rules and Mechanics

Set-up
Each player starts the game with £60,000 of promissory notes (or “cash” as it’s called by non-traders) and lives or dies on this according to their trading skill. Apart from some “Chance” cards which give you a further £10,000, should you be lucky enough to draw one, all of your money must come from timing the buying and selling of Company Shares.

One player is also selected to be the Stockbroker – I suggest someone who can do basic maths, whom you trust and, as some of the notes are similar in colour, isn’t colour blind!

A neat feature of the game is it’s variable game length: Trading takes place over a number of Bargaining Periods. Each Bargaining Period is made up of three Bargains, or player turns, but it’s up to the players themselves to agree at the start of the game how many Bargaining Periods will be played in total. The manual states that each Bargaining Period will take about 15 minutes for four players and I’ve found this to be pretty accurate. I wouldn’t recommend playing anything less than four full Bargaining Periods, but above that you can vary the game to fit the time you have. Very neat.

It’s worth stating at this point (in case you were wondering) that the game is based on UK currency so share prices move in increments of 50p (fifty pence) ie 50p, £1.00 (one Pound,) £1.50 (one Pound fifty,) £2.00 (two Pounds,) £2.50 (two Pounds fifty,) etc etc.

All players get a Share Price Chart which shows the opening prices and is used to record price movements and, if they are so inclined, total wealth as the game progresses.

Cards – the main mechanic
Each player gets dealt ten cards at the start of each Bargaining Period. These are used at the end of the Bargaining Period (ie after three trades each) to generate the movement in Company share value, movement of currency value or to allow a player to do “other stuff” (Chance cards.)

Each card is either:

• A share price movement (up or down) for a single Company, in multiples of 50p. At the end of the Bargaining Period these will be used, together with all the others in that Company from both your hand and the hands of the other players to generate a total price movement for that Company. This could be up or down depending on the cards dealt at the start of the Bargaining Period. There are 92 of these in the deck in total (46 positive movements, 46 negative.)

At this point I’ll point out that each of the six Companies have different number of cards in the deck and also have a different spread of potential price moves on those cards. For example boring old Trusthouse Forte has just eight cards with a movement value spread between -£1.00 and +£1.00. Risky NatWest on the other hand has twenty four cards and with movement values spread from -£3.00 to +£3.00. It’s this difference in number of cards and size of spread that generates the relative risk and hence potential gains (and losses) of any one particular Company. In order or risk/gain THF is lowest, followed by United Biscuits, Legal & General, Thames Television, Saatchi & Saatchi with NatWest being the riskiest but also the one where most gains can be made.

• A currency movement card, which has a movement (up or down) of 10% in the value of currency. These will be used together with any others from your hand and the hands of the other players to generate a currency value movement. There are 8 (4 positive, 4 negative) of these in the deck.

• A red “Chance” card, of which there are two of four different kinds for a total of 8 Chance cards. More on these later.

Turn sequence and actions
As stated earlier each player gets three turns in a Bargaining Period. In each turn a player gets to make single “bargain” which may be:

• Buy a block of shares in one Company.
• Sell a block of shares in a Company that they already own shares in
• Play a red Government Loan Stock, Rights Issue or Debenture “Chance” card (more on these later.)

You may be thinking that a calculator or maths graduate is a necessary accessory to play this game but Jordans have instead included a handy “ready reckoner” in the rules. This is simply a reference table that lists the size of share blocks that may be bought or sold along the top and the possible share prices from £2.50 to £20 in rows down the left hand side. So to buy or sell a block you simply cross reference the number of shares with the current value and read off the value in Promissory notes where the rows/columns intersect. There are however two minor issues with this: Shares can be traded as low as 50p. For some reason (probably space in the rule book) the 50p, £1.00, £1.50 and £2,00 rows are missing. As most people could manage the multiplication required for these values this shouldn’t be too much of a problem. The other issue is that all the cells in the table are the same colour so you can go boggle-eyed trying to trace rows and columns when cross referencing.

For these reasons I have generated an excel spreadsheet version which can be printed off and laminated. Put my player reference on the other side and you will have all you need to play the game at your finger tips!

Alternatively a player who doesn’t want to Bargain or play a card may pass.

Play moves to the left after each turn. After each player has had three turns the current Bargaining Period is closed by taking the following actions:

• The Stockbroker names each Company in turn and the players hand all movement cards for that Company back to the Stockbroker. The Stockbroker then adds up all the positive and negative movements to calculate a total movement for that Companies share price.

Any player who holds 50,000 or more shares in any one Company is deemed to be a Company Director. A Company Director may discard a single card from his hand relating to his Company before movement is calculated.

Any player who holds 100,000 or more shares in any one Company is deemed a Company Chairman. A Company Chairman may discard a single card from any hand relating to his Company before movement is calculated. A Chairman also gets a snazzy gold plastic status symbol.

• Each player then hands all Currency Cards back to the Stockbroker who, again, adds them up to calculate the total Currency movement. Any player holding spare capital (Promissory Notes) gains or loses this percentage of their capital rounded to the nearest £500. (Where’s that graduate/calculator gone?)

• Play any “Share Suspended” Chance cards (more on these later.)

As movements are calculated the new values for each of the Companies are recorded on each player’s Share Price Chart and during the next Bargaining Period shares are bought and sold at the new price. Share price movements may hence greatly increase or decrease the value of any stock holding you have and also make the purchase or sale of some shares more or less attractive. Buying low and selling high is at the heart of generating wealth in Stockmarket!

Bankruptcy
Shares can only be bought and sold if a Company has a Share price of 50p or more. Trading in a Company is suspended when it’s share rice hits 0p until movement takes it back to 50p or above, unless a player has a Debenture card (more on this later.)

Chance Cards
As has already been indicated there are two of four different kinds of red “Chance” cards. These are either played instead of that player’s turn (Bargain) or played at the end of a complete Bargaining Period depending on the card:

Government Loan Stock
Played as a bargain these allow the player to receive £10,000 from the Bank. These may be useful at the start of the game but are unlikely to be worth a whole Bargain later unless you’re doing really badly!

Rights Issue
Played as a Bargain these allow a player to initiate a “Rights Issue” to all shareholders of a single Company of the card player’s choice. All players who hold shares in the Company selected may immediately buy 1 Share for every 2 that they hold at a cost of just £1.00 per share. This can be very valuable if you hold a lot of stock in a high value Company, particularly if you hold more stock than the other players! Note that this effectively gives any other players who hold stock in that company an extra turn of buying.

Debenture
Played as a Bargain these cards allow the player of the card to sell shares held in any bankrupt Company at it’s opening price.

Shares Suspended
These are played at the end of a complete Bargaining Period, just before share prices are adjusted. They allow the player of the card to choose one Company and freeze it’s price at the level before any movement is applied for that period. In this way it will over-ride the usual share price movement of any one Company. This powerful card can be used to prevent loss if the value of one of your companies would otherwise take a tumble. Holding one may hence enable riskier trades during your turns. It can also be used to annoying effect to screw other players by preventing a surge in value of a share that they hold but you don’t!

Start a new Bargaining Period
After playing any “Shares Suspended” all cards, including all Chance cards, are handed back to the Stockbroker and shuffled back into the deck before a new hand of ten cards is dealt to each player No cards may be carried over into subsequent Bargaining Periods!

At the start of a new Bargaining Period play moves to the left so that the player making the first Bargain rotates.

Turns of buying, selling and card playing now resume but with trading taking place at the new prices.

Verdict

For such a simple mechanic this game does a surprisingly good job of simulating trading on the London Stock Exchange back in the 80s. The action is quick-fire, the stakes are high and Mullets are optional!

On your turn you will have in your hand some, but never quite enough information on which to judge which Companies will go up and which will go down. Trading is hence always nail-biting, semi-informed risk taking. Due to the distribution of the cards some of the Companies are less risky than others. If you have a lot of cards for a low risk Company you could make a reasonably safe trade. But there’s unlikely ever to be a certainty and, besides, profits from these low risk companies are going to be modest.

You can supplement your information by looking at what other investors buy or sell, but this can be just as risky. Are they buying because they have a lot of positive movement cards, or just taking a punt in a Company for which they don’t have any negatives? Are you looking at a real increase in value or just a South Sea Bubble?

Each turn presents plenty of choice, none of which is a dead cert. Do you risk high investments to get the benefit of being a Company Director or Chairman and if so in which company? A high risk one or a low risk one? If you make it do you sell out an profit take or attempt to ride the wave using your influence?

The Chance cards add another dimension: Rights Issues can generate great returns if played at the right time but may also benefit other players, possibly more than you! Suspended Shares allow for more risky investments to be made or provide for some evil back-stabbing!

All in all the atmosphere and tension in this game is exceptional. Nothing beats the contrast of a jittery investment followed by the rush of making a good strong profit from an investment then getting out just before a crash that takes your opponents down with it!

Add top notch components and variable game length and you have a winner in my book.

Postscript

It’s interesting to note that, of the six companies represented in this game only the two in the financial sector i.e. NatWest and Legal & General are still trading under their original names. Also, the current (9th April 2006) share prices are £1.45 for L&G and £1.65 for NatWest compared to the opening prices in the game of £4.00 and £8.00 respectively!

Ironically the biggest gain has, in fact, been the value of the game which often sells on e-Bay for 2-3 times more than I paid for it in 1987!

Which all goes to show that “the value of your investment can rise as well as fall” so buy low and sell high and remember: Lunch is for wimps!

Game: Stockmarket

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Thread: Re: Review of Stockmarket!

Thread: Review of Stockmarket!