Where are the new stocks?

Many users have asked why we are decreasing the number of stocks available for trading, rather than increasing the number.

As many players have noticed, for a long time, we were very aggressive at listing stocks. We did this because we knew the community was looking for a wider range of games to trade. Fans wanted their favorite upcoming games listed for trading.

And so, we listed as many games as we could, from games years away to games that came out a week ago. However, we soon found that this we the wrong way of going about the issue.

The simExchange was flooded with games. Some only a few dozen players were interested in trading. Some that were completely overlooked as they fell through the cracks between bigger game listings.

True, this gives more choice to what people can trade. However, in a market, this is a problem because many of these stocks become inactive. It is no fun for a new player to start an account, buy some stocks, and find out that no one else even trades those stocks. The stocks sit in their portfolio, 0 shares traded each day, and soon boredom ensues.

From a forecasting standpoint, a prediction market requires a diverse pool of participants constantly trading to price in the news. Many players have noticed that the overlooked, inactive stocks are generally the ones that are the most mispriced.

For these reasons, we continue to delist stocks without adding more. There are currently 220 stocks still listed on the simExchange. Many of these are for games that have not been released, and many of these games are fairly large titles that have not seen much trading.

You can of course help by trading a wider range of stocks and futures. Another way to help is to tell more people about the simExchange. Tell your friends. Tell people on message boards. Tell your blog readers.

Remember to use your referral link (the thing in the blue box at the top of each page). This link sends visitors to the page you are looking at and credits you with a referral if the person ends up joining after visting the link. Use this when referring to simExchange forecasts, when talking about how big a game can be, for just telling them about your favorite video game stock market. Help grow our community and you will reap benefits, too.