Join the new world

For the most part it's been a pretty uneventful day. Besides the ever-so-common new battle in Southern Basarabia, the only news is that we here in the eUS have now got a treaty with the Colombians*. So, us newspapers don't have much to report on except for some old hat issues. In turn, today I'll doing a piece on the ERX, or the 'eRepublik Stock eXchange.'

I don't dabble in stocks in real life, so I don't know too much about the system. As I see it, the basis of it all is that a company sells a portion - or a share - of the control in said company to investors who receive a minuscule portion of the business's profits for each of their shares. As the company makes money and investors sell and re-sell their stocks, the price of stock goes up and down. It's a supply and demand system much like the art market - a Picasso is worth a lot of money because everybody knows who Picasso was but his work is very rare, whereas works done by a local artist are worth much less money to a much smaller group of buyers because they are little-known and easily obtained.

I originally invested three gold in the ERX, and kept two in reserve for the creation of this very publication. My original deposit was used rather unwisely, excepting the purchase of some MCI stock at just over one gold. I lost some money, while the specified purchase gained interest. I soon obtained about ten more gold, and invested all of it into the ERX - I don't see myself using it for much else anytime soon. I purchased eight gold's worth of MCI, and made some other small investments. Most didn't pan out too well, and the gold fell right through my sieve. My remaining gold is in just two companies, tagged as MCI and QCT. As of now, I calculate that my total stock worth is hovering just under the thirteen gold I have invested - but the future looks much brighter than the past and present.

To a new player, an ERX outsider, and even myself this seems pretty good. I've lost a little, but kept my general cost. Even the ERX itself seems well enough, with it's archived data back-ups every fifteen minutes, company auditing options, and it's fairly easy to use organization/stock list. It even holds a safety net fund to help recuperate losses gained at the hands of bankrupt companies. Unfortunately, the eRepublik Stock eXchange has a glaring issue that greatly outweighs any of these things and actually hinders profiting from stock trading. It doesn't help new-comers.

I don't want the ERX to help me decide what companies to buy from, how much to sell my stock for, or even give a daily update on the most profitable stock- although that third bit would an okay standard. I want the ERX to teach it's new users what all of the data given about a company means! Going in I had no idea of how to decipher all of the junk that the ERX provides about a company. Because of this, I made some rotten decisions with my gold, resulting in some of it getting tied up in static stock, some getting lost to depreciating stock prices, and various other problems. I've now got a bit of a grasp on the system, but I still have no clue about the details of what I am doing.


What I do know is that I would have much more gold and something to boast about if the ERX had given me a little bit of a hand. Isn't it all about companies and investors making more money? If so, shouldn't the moderators throw everybody a bone and at least explain how the damned thing works outside of the massively unhelpful FAQ area?

(Here you go CivilAnarchy, a little something to put into your proposed Party Support System! A little Party or Country help with the ERX!)

I believe that the ERX should offer every fresh registration a quick video, just like the one that comes with every eRepublic join. It would enlarge the profit margins, increase company participation, encourage more people to think about involving gold in their game, and it would be invaluable those of us who are still a bit green in the world of stock.I would also love a graph of my own, like those seen on organization pages, to show me how much gold I've invested, made, and lost. Or at least a real-time comparison of my worth versus my investments. It would help me be a lot more liberal with my investing if I knew whether or not I was doing well!

Of course, I am not the only user on the eRepublic Stock eXchange, and I'm not the only one with issues. Let off some steam in the comment section, tell me what you'd like to see happen in the world of ERX, and what issues you've had with it.

As always, I encourage you to vote and subscribe and I wish you well in your eLife.

"Bunny" Haines


*As I wrote this, a resistance began in Chhattisgarh.