Let’s Talk About Stock Market Rounds
Corporations a.k.a. Public Companies a.k.a. Share Companies (I will use these terms interchangeably)
These are the meat and potatoes of 18xx games. If you’re of the vegan or vegetarian persuasion, these would be the soybean product or maybe a portobella burger and potatoes of 18xx games.
The typical Share Company will have 9 cards representing its publicly-traded shares. Eight of those shares will be a 10% share. The 9th share is the Director’s† Certificate worth 20%; whoever holds the Director’s Certificate makes all decisions for that corporation during the Operating Rounds.
†“Director” and “President” will be used interchangeably by the community and especially by me.
Companies don’t operate until they have sold 50% of their shares (Director’s Certificate and 3 regular certificates). This is known as “Floating” - until a company has floated, it does not participate in Operating Rounds. When a company floats, it receives 10 times its Par Price in Starting Capital (corporation money is separate and distinct from Player Money, more on this later)
When a company operates, it may choose to pay its shareholders. At the end of the game, your score will be the value of your held shares in addition to your (player) cash; you will need to make cash to reinvest in new companies and your opponents’ companies. Typically, corporations will operate and “Pay” (instead of “Withhold”), at which point you will get paid for any shares you hold in that company, regardless of who the Director is.
The rest of the game is going to alternate between Stock Rounds and Operating Rounds. An easy way to keep this straight is to think about Stock Rounds as the “player action round” and Operating Rounds as the “company action round”. So in Stock Rounds, we take turns in player order performing one of 2 actions.
Stock Round Actions:
- Sell and/or Buy a Share
- Pass
That’s it. Sell and/or Buy or Pass. If you want to sell and buy in the same action, in 1889 you must do it in Sell-then-Buy order. In contrast, 1830 and 1889 let you do it in either order and some other games are Buy-then-Sell. But, we’re playing 1889, so it’s Sell-then-Buy if you want to do both.
If Everybody passes consecutively, the Stock Market round ends and we proceed to Operating Rounds. The person to the left of the last person to buy-and-or-sell will receive the Priority Deal for the next Stock Market Round.
The first share sold of a company will always be the Director’s Certificate. When you buy it, you must select the “Par Price”. This is the price that all shares bought from the IPO will be sold for, even later in the game. After setting the Par Price, you’ll pay twice that price (because it’s a double share).
When Selling Shares, you can sell any number of shares (of any number of companies). For each company, you receive the ¥(Market Price x Number of Shares Sold) and the Stock price for that company will go down (not left) by a number of spaces equal to the number of shares sold. In this way, it’s beneficial to sell shares in groups rather than individually across turns. Shares sold go to the Bank Pool.
When Buying a share, there are two options. Early in the game, the only option will be from the IPO and you’ll pay the Par Price when doing so. Later, shares will be in the Bank Pool and may be purchased for Market Price (not Par Price).
You may NOT buy a Share of a company that you have previously sold in that Stock Market Round.
If you look at the Stock Market grid, you’ll notice the strange shape; i.e. not rectangular. This creates what are called “ledges”. When shares are sold and the token moves downwards on the stock market, it stops moving when it encounters the edge of the table; in this way, it’s possible to sell shares in a company that is already “ledged” without affecting its Market Price (this is good if it’s your company and you need to liquidate some holdings in it to fund something else)
There are two ways to get the market to move upwards on the track. If all of the shares in a company are held by players at the end of a Stock Market Round (i.e. there are no shares of that company in the IPO or bank pool), the token goes up by 1 space. The other way is by moving the token forward during Operating Rounds; in that case, if a lateral ledge is encountered, the token will move upwards instead.
Things Get Tricky
- A Director’s Certificate Cannot Be Sold. Full Stop. Cannot be done.
- A Director’s Certificate must be held by the person owning the most shares in a company. In the case of a tie, the tie is broken in favor of the person holding the Director’s Certificate. That is, if you own 40% and somebody else buy’s their 4th 10% share, you both have 40%, but you retain the Director’s Certificate. That means the next turn, if it’s available, the other player could buy a 5th share and take control of the company. If that happens, you exchange the Director’s Certificate with that player in exchange for 2 regular shares (you don’t lose any percentage of ownership, but you will no longer take that corporation’s Operating Round turns)
- If You Hold 20% or more of a Corporation, you can get stuck holding the bag! Companies are the path to success in 18xx. But they are also a huge liability and burden on their owners if they aren’t careful. Later, when discussing Operating Rounds, we’ll learn more about purchasing trains. The key thing to realize: if a company must buy a train and it cannot afford to buy one of the trains available, its Director must pay the difference out of pocket and that very often leads to Bankruptcy – a very common way for 18xx games to end. And remember: you can’t sell a Director’s Certificate to the Bank Pool, so if you are the last person holding at least 20% in a corporation that’s in trouble, be careful! This is why Priority Deal is such a big focal point for 18xx players.
- Holding 10% of a company is safe! If you only hold 1 share in a company, there’s no way to get presidency/directorship foisted upon you because you are not eligible to exchange shares for the 20% Director’s Share.
- You can attack a company and, by extension, its investors by selling its shares. Share prices drop when sold but do not increase when bought. This can be a useful tool for vying for the order in which corporations operate (which will be covered later)
- If your company is doing well, your opponents will buy up any shares that are available – This is good! If all the shares are sold out at the end of a Stock Market Round, the share price will go up! – But! Your opponents will get paid whenever your company "Pay"s Dividends!
Learn from the community
I’ll try to summarize general advice that I’ve seen mentioned in the 18xx communities I watch here
- Invest to the left. In general (more often than not) you will act before the person to your left does in a Stock Market Round; that means you’re less likely to get stuck with a cash-poor-and-trainless corporation (unless the player to your left has Priority Deal, of course)
- [that’s all for now]
Mind your own business, Discourse!
