Post by CBJ » Tue, 13. Dec 11, 19:18

Stock Exchanges



The Stock Exchange in X3: Albion Prelude is not just a single station. The Stock Exchange feature consists of a series of Stock Exchange stations, also known as local exchanges, that are spread across the X Universe.



Stock Exchange Stations



Stock Exchange Stations are usually located in "core" sectors and can be visually identified by the Stock Exchange signage outside. Each local exchange serves a group of surrounding sectors owned by the same race as the sector in which the Stock Exchange station is located. As an example, the Argon Prime exchange serves the surrounding Argon sectors.



Trading



Local exchanges will need to be "unlocked" before you can trade shares at them. Each race will have it's own unique requirements to unlock local exchanges owned by that race. You can see the requirements for unlocking a local exchange by opening the Stock Exchange station's standard Info menu. Some races require missions to be completed, others may involve a payment of some kind, while still others are based on a particular trade or fight ranking that must be achieved.



Your reputation with each race will also be a factor. You must maintain at least a neutral reputation with a race in order to be able to trade shares at their local exchanges, so any race that is hostile to you will not let you use their local exchanges at all. They won't, however, confiscate any shares you already hold at their local exchanges if your reputation drops at any time, so you can regain access to them later by improving your reputation.



You can trade shares at a given local exchange by physically docking there yourself. Alternatively you can trade shares remotely if you have at least one asset (it can be a ship, a satellite, or even a station) within scanner range of an unlocked Stock Exchange.



Local exchange share prices are calculated by getting the Products and Resources from the sectors served by the exchange and evaluating these to generate a share price and index value. The lower the index value the greater the demand, and hence the higher the share price.



The trading of shares costs a small transaction fee each time you buy or sell shares. This fee is 2% of the total transaction amount in credits. Each time you sell shares for a profit, you will gain a small increase in your trade ranking and possibly a reputation increase with the race that controls that Stock Exchange. Any such increases are based on the profit made, not the total value of the transaction.



Trade Information



Most Stock Exchange related activities are accessed from the Player menu on the sidebar. From here you can view the main Stock Exchange menu, as well as the Corporate and Company menus that deal with the Corporations and Companies that are found in the X Universe respectively. There are also a number of Broker Settings here that you can adjust to match your personal preferences.



Finally, no Stock Exchange would be complete without graphs! A series of Graphs have been made available so you can view your current commodity shares at a glance. These allow you to view just information relating to one local exchange, or from all of the local exchanges at which you currently hold shares.



Requirements



There are a number of requirements that must be fulfilled before you can start using the Stock Exhange feature, and individual local exchanges within it:



• The ship you are flying needs a Trading System Extension installed, even if you are docked at a Stock Exchange station.

• A Stock Exchange station has to be known to you before it will become available for trading.

• A local stock exchange must be unlocked in order to use it (see Stock Exchange station Info menu for details of requirements).

• You need at least one asset within scanner range of a Stock Exchange station in order to trade shares there.

• You have to maintain at least a neutral reputation with a race if you want to trade shares at their local stock exchanges.



Shares



The Stock Exchange allows the trading in shares of four different types.



Commodity shares are the shares that are available from the local exchanges. These are shares in the products and resources that can be found throughout the X-Universe. Each exchange will only list shares for products or resources that can be found in its area.



Also part of Commodity Shares are "Naturals", wares that are not normally used in the game. These are shares in items you won't find at stations, but they are the kinds of things you might expect to find in shops or specialty outlets located on stations. The share prices for these items are also based on the supply and demand for them; the more visitors a station gets, the more demand there is.



As you discover each Corporation HQ, shares in that Corporation will become available from the Corporation / Company Index menu. The current value of a Corporation's assets will determine its share price.



As the X-Universe is a rather large place, the inhabitants need businesses to supply them with goods and services. Businesses that become big enough may become Companies, and some of these Companies may apply for listing on the Stock Exchange. Company share prices can fluctuate quite quickly as consumer confidence in their daily activities changes.



Local Stock Exchange



The Local Stock Exchange menu is accessed from the Player menu on the sidebar. After choosing a local exchange from the list of those that are currently available to you (the one associated with the sector you are currently in will be listed with three asterisks next to its name, and those at which you currently hold shares will be shown in green) you will be presented with a large and possibly rather daunting-looking menu!



The first section of the menu shows you how much money you have and details of the local exchange that you selected from the list. Selecting the entry with the local exchange sector name in the menu will display a list of the sectors that are served by that exchange. Note that it will only show sectors that are known to you, so further exploration may result in that list growing.



The second section gives you access to a graph showing the shares that you currently own at this local exchange, and also provides some simple options for expanding and collapsing the other parts of the menu.



The final section is a large and colourful table full of numbers, which may seem daunting at first, but which you will become very familiar with if you decide to trade seriously on the Stock Exchange. The lines in this section represent the types of shares you can trade in at this local section, and are grouped into categories. If you are not interested in a particular category then you can collapse that section of the menu by selecting the group heading menu line for that category. Similarly if you are only interested in one category then you can collapse all the others.



For each individual share, selecting that share will take you directly to a menu where you can buy or sell that share. However, you probably won't want to do that until you have at least some idea what the numbers across the page next to it mean, so here is a quick explanation of what all those columns of numbers mean:



• Supply: total available amount of this item in this exchanges area.

• Demand: total required amount of this item in this exchanges area.

• Min Cr: minimum number of Credits this item's shares will trade for.

• Max Cr: maximum number of Credits this item's shares will trade for.

• Index: the most important entry to watch in this menu (see below)!

• Trend Line: the "^" and "v" symbols next to the Index tell you what movement there has been.

• Trading At: price at which the shares for this item are currently trading.

• Bought At: if you own shares in this item at this exchange, the average you paid for those shares.

• Owned Shares: the number of shares you own for this item at this exchange.

• Shares Avail: the total number of shares currently available for this item at this exchange.

• Net Profit: the net profit, after fees, that you would make if you sold all your shares in this item right now.



As mentioned in the list above, the Index value is very important. It tells you whether the shares are high or low in value in relative terms. An Index value of between 0 and 49 is likely to be a good time to sell, while an Index value of between 50 and 100 will probably be a good time to buy. An index value of 100 is considered the optimum for buying, with any number greater than that representing over-supply.



Right at the bottom of the menu are totals for the columns showing the number of shares you own and the net profit.



Corporation and Company Indexes



In addition to the ware-based shares in the Local Stock Exchange menu, you can also trade in Corporation and Company shares using the Corporation and Company Indexes menu. The structure of this menu is very similar, as are the meanings of the columns displayed.



The two most obvious differences are the ability to switch the menu between Buying and Selling modes, and the fact that there are no columns for Supply and Demand since the shares do not correspond to individual wares.



Detailed Summary of Shares Owned



If you want to review your share portfolio across all the local stock exchanges at which you have traded, the Detailed Summary of Shares Owned provides you with a breakdown. Again, this menu follows the same structure, with the same data columns, but this time it focusses entirely on the shares that you own and does not show any data for other shares that you might be interested in buying.



The shares in this menu are grouped according to the local exchange at which they are held, and since it is possible to hold shares in the same item at different local exchanges, it is also possible that you may see the same items listed in more than one group. As with the Local Stock Exchange menu, groups can be collapsed and expanded to allow you to focus on those you are currently interested in.



There are totals at the bottom of each group, and also a grand total at the bottom of the menu as a whole, which tells you the total number of shares that you hold in your portfolio across all local exchanges, and the total net profit that you would make if you were to sell them all immediately.



Buying and Selling



From any of the above menus, selecting a menu line showing shares for a particular item will take you to a menu where you can buy and/or sell shares. This is where you get to part with all your hard earned credits or cash in on your last investment, or of course make a terrible loss!



The top part of the menu provides you with information to help you decide how many shares to buy or sell. At the bottom of the menu are the options to actually initiate a transaction. The text of those options will tell you whether you can buy, sell or both. Buying and selling involves using the "trade bar" that you will be familiar with from the standard station Trade menu, including all the usual functionality such as the ability to type in the quantity you want.



Transaction Reports



Several transaction reports are available to help you keep track of your investment history. Each report features sorting options, the ability to output data to a logfile for further analysis outside the game, and a means to delete entries from the transaction history, either individually or as a whole.



The report data itself is fairly self-explanatory, with columns for information such as where and when each transaction took place, what was bought or sold, and all the relevant numbers involved.



If all this is just too much information, you can always turn off the reports individually using the Broker Settings menu!



Graphs



Several graphs relating to your Stock Exchange activities are available from the Graphs menu, which can be found under the Advanced option in the Player sidebar menu. The graphs that will be available here depend on your trading history.



The Local Stock Exchange graph is the same one that you can view from the Local Stock Exchange menu, and offers a list of local exchanges for you to choose from. The Commodity Shares Owned graph displays the numbers of shares that you currently own at all local exchanges, grouped by exchange and share category. The Current Shares Owned graph displays all shares you own at all exchanges as a single bar graph, grouped by share category.