FAN FORUMS FOR WALL STREET RAIDER:
From time to time, various Wall Street Raider fans have set up forums or blogs
for players of W$R to swap stories, exchange ideas and game strategies, and check
for developments relating to W$R.
We recently became aware that someone has set up a fan forum for
W$R a year or two ago, at this URL:
https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/wsrunited/
RONIN SOFTWARE DOES NOT SPONSOR OR OPERATE ANY SUCH FAN SITES,
AND THEIR CONTENT IS NOT CONTROLLED OR MONITORED BY RONIN SOFTWARE.
New releases of Wall Street Raider or Speculator are also
announced on this page.
ANNOUNCING.... NEW WEBSITE
Wall Street Raider now has its own secure website, since the
WallStreetRaider.com domain
name finally became available in 2019. Check it out!
However, this roninsoft.com website continues to be operational, for Wall
Street Raider and our other software and publications.
MAJOR NEW WALL STREET RAIDER RELEASE(v. 9.0):
With nothing better to do while "locked down" during the pandemic for
most of the dismal year of 2020, we went to work on Wall Street Raider,
making dozens and dozens of improvements and additions, including some
features we always thought were too difficult to implement, such as detailed
corporate cash flow projections (which get very hairy for corporations
with a number of subisidiaries, especially 80%-owned subs, with
various tax reimbursements going back and forth between parent and
subs), but we finally came up with an approximation that gives you
pretty accurate, but never perfect, cash flow projections. We also put
to work the diagnostic algorithm that computes such projections to
give you a warning when a company you control is about to have a cash
flow crisis in the next 3 months, in which it is projected to run out
of both cash and line of credit.
Another feature suggested by users that we had thought was a
bit too complex to model with our limited programming skills,
was to create leveraged (3X) stock index funds, which try to
emulate 3 times the upward or downward moves of the Stock Index.
But after many long days of tinkering with frequent adjustments
in holdings of long (or short) stock index futures by such ETFs,
we were finally able to create a realistic long (bullish) 3X
stock index ETF and a short (bearish) 3X index ETF. As in the
real world, both tend to be awful as long-term investments, due
to their constant buying and selling of futures, in order to
maintain the triple leverage equivalence, but as a short-term
trading vehicle, either of the two funds can make you rich
overnight if your bet on the direction of the stock market index
is right -- or can quickly make you poor if you bet wrong. For
even more leverage, you can also trade put and call options on
each of the new ETFs, if you like living dangerously.
Besides the two new Stock Index ETFs, we also added a
government bond ETF, an investment-grade corporate bond ETF,
and a junk bond fund. All 3 bond funds are handy places for
your industrial company or holding company to park its excess
cash at a good yield.
For a summary of many of the important changes in Version 9.0,
CLICK HERE.
MAJOR NEW "SPECULATOR" RELEASE (v. 2.0): Effective August 5, 2020 we released
a major new upgrade to Speculator, the most significant upgrade since the initial 2016
release. Among other changes, it includes 5 new ETFs -- a government bond fund, a "blue
chip" (investment grade) bond fund, a junk bond fund, a 3x leveraged Stock Index fund (which
obtains the triple leverage by constantly adjusting holdings of Stock Index futures), the
"BULL" fund, and a 3x leveraged bearish (symbol "BEAR") Stock Index fund that shorts the
index futures. Also added (something we always thought was too complex to even attempt)
is a 3-month cash flow projection (and warnings of cash flow problems) for all companies
except banks. Projections get horrendously complex for consolidated groups where there is
cash flowing back and forth between parents and subs for tax adjustments, upstreaming tax
credits, etc., and, of course, projections are always just that -- estimates, never 100%
precise, since a lot can change in 3 months play. But we think we have pretty well nailed it,
with a neat new tool for stockholders, including textual summaries of a company's cash flow
situation in various reports. For a summary of many of the important changes in Version 2.0,
CLICK HERE.
SPECULATOR VIDEOS: Chris Chillingworth, a fan of "Speculator," has created a
series of YouTube videos, where he plays and explains Speculator, our stock trading game, at
THIS LINK.
He is running the program on a Mac, apparently running it within a Windows emulator program
called CrossOver. The emulator doesn't translate some of the fonts to the Mac that well, so
parts of the screen, like the stock ticker, look a little odd, but otherwise it seems to
work pretty well on his Mac. (His first two of seven or more videos have an audio problem,
making it a bit difficult to understand everything he's saying, but the audio is fine on
#3 and subsequent episodes.) Check it out -- he makes it very interesting to follow his
progress through a game. (Unfortunately, it doesn't look like he will be adding any
further videos.)
MAJOR IMPROVEMENTS IN OTHER RECENT WALL STREET RAIDER RELEASES (THROUGH V. 8.72):
Versions
8.70-8.72, "officially" released in early 2020, added a feature
that has been suggested or requested by users for years -- the
ability to manage the investments of an exchange-traded fund (ETF).
To become an ETF's advisor, you simply need to take control of the
insurer or securities broker that is the current manager of the
fund. Or, if you control or start up an insurer or securities
broker, you can purchase the "management contract" for a particular
fund from the existing fund manager, using a new button ("Become
ETF Advisor") that appears on the Management Menu when the Active
Entity is an insurer or securities broker that you control (if it
is not currently the advisor to any ETFs).
In addition to making it possible for a player to manage an
ETF (directing it to buy and sell stocks and options, issue or
buy back or redeem bonds, or in some cases, issue new stock or
pay extraordinary dividends), we have introduced a compensation
system that rewards the fund manager, much like a typical hedge
fund manager, sharing up to 20% of the gains over each 2-year
measurement period, to the extent the gains exceed 20% over that
period. On the other hand, if an ETF you manage performs too
poorly over a 5-year period after you become its advisor, you
(your controlled company, actually) can be fired as the fund
advisor. Ouch!
Version 8.70 also added a new setting -- "Max Growth Rate
(Global) Throttle: __%" -- to the Settings pull-down menu.
The default setting is 60%. However, you can change the
"throttle" setting (growth rate limit) to any value between
-10% and 60%. This setting is particularly useful when you
control a large number of companies that are operating on
AutoPilot, but letting you set the upper limit on the rate
that such industrial companies you control will grow their
assets. That can be very handy when a depression occurs,
allowing you to instantly lower the growth rate for all
your AutoPilot companies at once, instantly, and knowing
that the AutoPilot algorithms will be overridden if they
would attempt to increase a company's growth rate above
the "throttle" setting that is in place.
Versions 8.71 and 8.72 were mainly fixes for some bugs in
8.70 and 8.71, plus a couple of new convenient features --
one being a reminder every other December, if you are managing
an ETF, that you need to lower the basic management fee to
the 0.2% minimum fee immediately, if you want to be eligible
to earn an incentive bonus fee for superior fund performance
in the next 2-year measurement period that is about to begin.
Other minor changes include treating ETFs your companies
manage like controlled companies, for purposes of the pop-up
Earnings Reports and the automatic fill of the streaming
quotes list with entities you have a financial interest in,
when you use the "FILL" button.
If you bought v. 8.70 or 8.71, you can upgrade (free) to
v. 8.72. Just email me at the address at the bottom of this
page to request the 8.72 bug fix, and I'll send you a download
link. Sorry about the regular bug fixes. As this "Rube Goldberg"
source code of WSR grows ever more complex, I seem to create
more bugs every time I add a new feature, which often doesn't
mesh perfectly with the rest of the program!
OTHER RECENT RELEASES:
For those who are still playing a version of W$R that is
several years old, you should be aware of a number of other
improvements in v. 8.57 and other recent releases as well.
See the "Update Information" page
on this website for details, which are far too numerous to
repeat here.
On September 15, 2015, v. 7.80 was released, which we expected would be the
final significant upgrade, as we are about at the end of development of W$R,
due to health problems (somewhat under control now), dwindling sales, and
(mainly) having run out of good ideas for any major new features, after only
3 decades of development (the first MS-DOS version was published in 1986).
As such, WSR is probably one of the longest-running programs on the Internet
(and going back a few years before there was an Internet, it was sold in stores,
bulletin boards, and other places). I think "Pong" preceded it by a few years.
However, since the 7.80 release, the urge to tinker with the program never
went away, so we eventually released version 8.0 and several more major or
minor upgrades after it. Version 8.0 was designed to make W$R MUCH more
realistic and therefore more difficult for players to quickly finagle their
way into the quadrillions or quintillions of net worth. The 8.0x versions
cracked down on a large number of "loopholes" in the program, like the
ability to buy futures on, for instance, a thousand (or million!) times the
actual world supply or annual production of a commodity. However, I'm sure
some users still find loopholes, but maybe not quite such large ones now.
Thinking back over recent years, here is a partial list of major features
we have added, many of them at the request of players:
- Put and call options trading.
- Executive stock options and performance bonuses for CEOs.
- Commodity futures trading.
- Ability to invest in and store physical commodities.
- Stock index futures.
- Interest rate swaps (derivatives).
- Stock price alerts, to let you know when a stock reaches a
price you have specified, above or below the current price.
- Automatic "sweeping" of cash balances to pay down a player's margin debt.
- A system where players or companies can put stocks or assets up for sale,
or view a list of stocks or assets being offered for sale (cheap) by other
players or entities.
- Advice ("from your lawyers") as to whether or not you should agree to
settle or go to trial when antitrust suits are brought against your companies.
- An "autopilot" system where you can turn most of the management of
your controlled companies over to the simulation, when you control too
many companies to properly manage them all yourself.
- Cheats that involve being able to trade on "insider" information.
- Ability to set asset allocation percentages for banks you control.
- Addition of Treasury bills as a new asset class to invest in.
- Convertible bonds, as an equity-like bond investment and tool
for financing at lower interest rates.
- Ability to set a bank asset allocation formula.
- Made it possible for a player to manage the assets of
an investment fund (ETF) and possibly earn very large
gain-sharing bonuses every two years for good results.
- A new (global) setting to "throttle down" asset growth
rates for all your controlled (industrial) companies that are
operating on AutoPilot.
Obviously, we have had a wealth of good ideas contributed by users,
including quite a few that we simply didn't want to take on, like
building in rental real estate empire building and role-playing
features. We have tried to keep the focus in W$R on stocks, bonds,
options, futures, and other derivative investments, and not wander
too far afield, like getting into Dungeons & Dragons, currency
trading, or Bitcoin....
We've also added a number of new "ethical scenarios" since 8.0,
such as one involving (faulty) self-driving trucks, made by European
auto companies, and some shady practices regarding health insurance
claims denial by insurance companies. Other such "cheat" scenarios
added in 8.01 through 8.70 include one involving autonomous killer
robots (made by defense contractors) and another for a utility company
that risks building a windfarm on an Indian reservation, on a major
bird migration route. Others include a scenario involving production
of controversial "sex-bots" and sale of customer passcodes and other
private information by security firms. Most such "ethical choice"
scenarios make for quick, easy profits... unless something goes
wrong and backfires!
OUR STOCK TRADING GAME:
Besides Wall Street Raider and Small Business Advisor,
I now also publish Speculator: The Stock Market Simulation,
a "spin-off" from Wall Street Raider that it seemingly took forever
to get around to finishing. (FYI: Small Business Advisor, formerly $99 for
the professional version with state laws coverage for 33 states, is now a
free download, as of August 15, 2020, and we have ceased updating it earlier
this year.)
In Speculator, you are not a billionaire tycoon who
can influence or manipulate stock prices, but just a small, middle-class
investor with a $100,000 inheritance to invest or speculate with. Rather than
having an emphasis on taking over and managing companies, this is a "pure"
trading game (which doesn't let you take over companies). It will that test
your ability to research companies and profitably trade or invest in them.
You may find it a lot more challenging than Wall Street Raider, as you have
to be a nimble trader in stocks, bonds (including convertibles), options
and futures. Besides which, we have made trading stocks or futures
considerably more treacherous and difficult.
For details, or to try out the free (shareware) version,
CLICK HERE. The shareware version (2.0)
now has short sales, options trading and futures trading enabled (but
you have to make some very good stock and bond trades in only 3 years
in the shareware version to become eligible for the more advanced
trading levels -- vs. 30 years to do so in the Registered Version).
W$R YOUTUBE VIDEO NOW AVAILABLE. An ardent fan of Wall
Street Raider has recently been posting very detailed videos on a new YouTube
channel, RakeM, showing users how to play (and win at!) Wall Street Raider,
using versions 7.60 and 7.8x (and probably v. 8.0 soon). These are very well
done, and Rakem (Mark Slatcher) has now completed posting all 55 episodes for
7.60, in which he played a game from start to finish (or to absurdity, with
quintillions in net worth), showing how to maximize the use of various features
and clever strategies. He is a very accomplished player, and found ingenious
ways to generate unbelievable levels of net worth. The creativity of some W$R
players is truly remarkable. (But be aware, that thanks to his discovery of
some massive "loopholes," many of the tactics he shows in v. 7.60 through 7.8x
are now either not possible or have been significantly restricted in 8.0.)
Here is the link to Rakem's newer series on 7.8x, which links to all of his other W$R videos:
Wall $treet Raider YouTube VIDEOS
Rakem has also begun a (free)
video tutorial.
on YouTube. The tutorial series will go through every feature of the simulation, showing how each
works. It is not about strategies, unlike his video series mentioned above.
SPECULATOR YOUTUBE VIDEO NOW AVAILABLE. As noted above, we were
recently alerted to the existence of a series of YouTube videos, six at last
count, chronicling a game that was being played on v. 1.23 of Speculator. The
audio quality is not good on the first two videos, but is OK on the others.
Here is the LINK.
NOTE FOR NEW PLAYERS -- RONINSOFT.COM TUTORIAL: A (free)
step-by-step online tutorial for getting started playing Wall Street Raider, at:
www.roninsoft.com/tutorial.htm.
(The current release links from the W$R "Game Options" menu of W$R directly to the
RoninSoft.com tutorial.) This is a VERY basic tutorial for new players, like how to
buy or sell a stock, and so it may not be of much interest to experienced W$R "junkies."
ONE LAST NOTE: I still hope to find a new publisher that would
have the resources to be able to "modernize" the program and still keep it working
correctly, to carry on its development (and market it) for other platforms, like
iOS and Android-based devices. Software firms that have attempted to "port" it up
till now, even as simplified "dumbed-down" versions, have all failed to create a
version that worked, and have given up or run out of funding. It's a humongously
complex beast, though it looks simple on the surface, with my klunky and minimal
graphics.
After my continuously tweaking this program to massage every number in
it since I began work on W$R in 1984, it has gotten ridiculously complex,
and it is a minor miracle that it works at all. So I am not too optimistic
about the possibility of finding a well-funded publisher to take it over,
particularly since it is the extreme example of a "niche" program that only
appeals to a small slice of the population -- generally, those of you with
high I.Q.s. :-)
I would like to "open-source" it, but after looking into that possibility,
it seems complex and probably expensive, and I wouldn't want to simply
put the source code online and lose my copyrights.
I'm 76 now, so I will not be on the planet too much longer, but will keep
this website going and continue to provide free replacements for at least the
next few years (or so I hope). To all those of you who have supported Raider's
development with your good ideas and by buying the upgrades over the years
(15 times or more for some of you), many, many thanks for your support!
I never made serious money publishing Raider, but I have had a great deal
of satisfaction from all the emails and letters from long-time players who
say W$R was what enabled them to embark on and succeed in careers as hedge
fund and mutual fund managers, options floor traders, and finance teachers,
or as successful investors in the market -- not to mention the enjoyment
I've gotten out of the intellectual challenge of matching wits with users
in all corners of the globe, in my (vain) attempts to plug every loophole!
(Sad to say, you guys have always found NEW loopholes....)
Check out some of the interesting comments I've received from players
over the years, at www.roninsoft.com/comments.com.
-- Michael Jenkins, January 1, 2021
