Devil Doll said:
Without going into too much detail essentially it would work like this...
Lets take Omegaton Industries as an example.
STOCK PRICE
MA would calculate a share price based on several factors including volume of omegaton product sales, price of omegaton product sales (note: this would absolutely have to include TT sales), production numbers and stock sales/buys. So, now we have a stock price that changes every day the market is open and freezes where it is when it is closed.
BUYING
You would be allowed to buy or sell stocks based on the exchange rules. Commonly you would have to make a minimum order, say 100 shares, and would be charged a commision, say 10 PED an order or a percentage of the order. So say you order 100 shares and the current price is 10 PED per share with a commision of 10%. So 100x10=1000PED for the shares 1000x10%=100PED for the commision. Now you shelled out 1100 PED and own 100 shares. The 1100 PED would sit in the "stock market" or as we will call it "stock lootpool".
SELLING
So you have your 100 Omegaton Shares and you want to sell. If the price has gone down to 9 PED per share and you sold you would get 900 PED (minus another transaction fee of course). If it went up to 15 PED you would withdraw and make money.
HOW DOES MA NOT LOSE?
MA does not lose for several reasons (if implemented correctly). One, they keep and set the commisions. Pure profit for them. Two, if the prices are calculated correctly they are indicitive of the real "value" of a share. In other words, MA owns everything already. If the price of Omegaton goes up it is because of several factors (higher priced sales, more sales etc) that lead the price up and the cash is therfore already in the economy. If the price goes down obviously they win.
BENEFITS
A huge benefit would be the boost to Economy. For example, if I own Omegaton Shares I would be much more likely to push their product and recommend their product. I would be much less likely to TT their products because I want the price to go up. Research and Dev (read better loots). Thats right, if Omegaton is doing well enough they could pull out some of the excess from their stock earnings to put more Imp 2870s on the market.
CHALLENGES
The biggest challenge for MA to overcome is public perception and ignorance when it comes to this issue. If Joe Schmoe makes crappy investment discisions and loses all of his PED he will blame MA no doubt. I have no easy answer here for how MA can combat this. What may be an idea is a player run SEC (Securities and Exchange Commision). Their job would be to make and enforce regulations as an independant body to prevent fraud.
DD
STOCK PRICE
The stock prize should be determined naturally, by the laws of supply and demand. Just like on the real stock markets.
If it would be determined mathematically by sales, price, etc it doesn't allow things like perception to influence the prices.
And the prices would be determined completely by MA's decisions.
BUYING
A percentage is the most logical commission.
So you would pay 1000 PED + 10% = 1100 PED. But these should not go to the 'stock lootpool', but they should go to the person you buy the stocks from.
SELLING
The same: you sell to a person, not to MA. The price is determined by what other people are prepared to offer.
HOW DOES MA NOT LOSE?
In this case, MA does not interfere, except for the comission. The profit they make is from the commisions, they shouldn't have anything to do with the rest. If people lose, that's because they bought to high or sold too low, and that works just like the regular market.
BENEFITS
The companies on the stockmarked should be real existing companies (in PE), like trading companies. This way money from investors, that would normally just ly around, will be put in the entropia economy and enlarge the economy.
CHALLENGES
Indeed MA has to make sure that they can't be blamed for any possible loss.
They should also have some way of checking up on the companies that have stocks on the marked, to make sure that they don't commit any 'fraud'.
and enforce regulations as an independant body to prevent fraud.
What I would do:
I wouldn't put in any of the ingame companies that now exist ingame. These companies would be way to dependant on MA's decision, and it would be almost impossible to anticipate any developments in this economy.
The companies on the stock markets should be player/society-owned.
For example: a society starts a trading company. They divide the company in 1000 shares. They keep 50%+1 stock, so they stay in charge. So they keep 501 shares. These shares are divided between the society members that own the compagnie. They sell the rest of the shares on the stock markets. This way, they'll be able to get starting money from the stock markets, on top of what they have on their own.
If the company is successfull, demand for their stock will rise, and the price will go up.
And if you own 30%, you also have 30% of the 'power' in the compagnie, so u can even influence any ecisions they make.
I think this system would give much more possibilities to the stock exchange, but it would imply that there would be ingame companies. So MA would have to develop an entire ingame bussiness system (or at least the 'bookkeeping' of the company).
applause for Starfinder
