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....WALL STREET RAIDER UPDATE DETAILS....
UPDATE NOTICE:
FULL-SCREEN VERSION 6.0, WITH EXECUTIVE STOCK OPTION GRANTS TO CEO'S, STOCK CHARTING,
PUT & CALL OPTION TRADING, SHORT SELLING (STOCKS AND OPTIONS) AND STREAMING QUOTES, IS NOW AVAILABLE
(See details and cautionary note for users of older computers below)
Below are details on updates, bug fixes, upgrades and other
improvements in the Windows version of Wall Street Raider. Click
here to see an image of the revised
main screen of Wall Street Raider (in Version 6.0).
REGISTERED USERS: If you are a registered user
of the Windows version, you can order updates/upgrades to version 2.50
or the full-screen version (v. 6.0) at a greatly reduced price of $9.95,
which includes the latest version of the (electronic) strategy manual,
which now comes in both HTML and PDF formats (HTML for hypertext viewing,
PDF for easy printing, if you wish to print out a hard copy).
NOTE: The $7.00 update, which did not include the e-Manual, is
no longer offered after December 1, 2007. However, the "Full Package"
update that includes the e-Manual and Customizer Utility program will
continue to be offered for $9.95 to registered users, to at least
January 1, 2010, as it has been since 2004.
To access the reduced price ordering link, simply load your current
(REGISTERED) version of W$R, and click on the "Options/Updates" menu
item, which will take you to the ordering page on the Internet. (If
you have a very old copy of W$R, that only takes you back to this
page, e-mail us at mdjenk@aol.com
with your registration info and we will give you the link for
ordering at the $9.95 price.) The file you will download will be
the full-screen version, 6.0.
CAUTIONARY NOTE: VERSION 6.0, WITH STOCK CHARTS, SHORT-SELLING
AND STREAMING QUOTES (FULL-SCREEN VERSION), MAY NOT BE IDEAL FOR YOUR
COMPUTER MONITOR. While versions 3.xx and higher contain a
number of new and attractive features, including stock charts, options
trading, and a streaming quotes section on the main screen, these newer
versions require you to have your screen resolution set at 1024 x 768
(rather than the low-resolution 800 x 600 setting many people prefer on
older computers). Nearly all computer monitors shipped in the last
several years have a "native resolution" of at least either 1024 x 768
pixels, or 800 x 600, although Windows allows you to use either level
of resolution on any monitor. The 1024 x 768 resolution looks fine on
new XP and Vista systems, with high-end flat-screen LCD monitors, but
on older or smaller monitors, with a "native resolution" of 800 x 600,
the print may appear too small for your liking, and thus you might not
want to have to change to the 1024 x 768 resolution, if that is not
the setting you generally use. To see if you like the way Version 6.0
looks and performs on your computer (it also requires a faster computer
and faster graphics card for screen updates than prior W$R versions)
FIRST DOWNLOAD
A FREE (SHAREWARE) COPY OF v. 6.0 AND TRY IT OUT. If it does not
perform satisfactorily on your computer, you should stick with the
Version 2.50 (in the small-screen format, like the previous versions
of W$R) that we sell. If you don't like the full-screen version 6.0,
go ahead and order it and email us after you order, to request a registered
version copy of the slightly older small-screen version, v. 2.50, which we
will send to you instead of (or in addition to) v. 6.0. (Note: V. 2.50
does not include the newer features, such as short selling, options trading,
or stock charts.)
PLEASE DO NOT ORDER THE v. 6.0 UPDATE IF YOU ALREADY HAVE
THE REGISTERED VERSION 2.50, UNLESS YOU HAVE FIRST TRIED THE
FULL-SCREEN SHAREWARE VERSION 6.0, AND ARE SATISFIED WITH
THE WAY IT LOOKS AND PERFORMS ON YOUR COMPUTER SYSTEM!
SHAREWARE USERS: Download the latest shareware
(free) version ( v. 6.0)
of W$R or the small-screen version
(v. 2.45). Note that the shareware version, while it limits games to
2 years in length generally, sometimes allows you to play an additional 3
years if you greatly exceed your previous best score! (The registered version
allows games of up to 35 years length.) To order the registered version 6.0
($19.95), CLICK HERE.
Or, to order the "Full Package" that includes the W$R Strategy Manual (electronic,
not a print version), for $29.95, CLICK HERE.
Check below, to determine if an update has been issued since
the version you currently have. As you can see, Wall Street Raider
is a "work in progress," and has constantly been improved and made
more realistic and usable over the years.
WINDOWS VERSION RELEASES THROUGH
September 1, 2010 (v. 6.0)
(Descriptions of releases are shown below in reverse order)
- 6.0 -- Released: September 1, 2010 (Major release)
- Commodity futures trading has been added to this new
major release of Wall Street Raider. Players and all
companies (except banks and insurance companies) may
now engage in buying or shorting commodities futures
contracts on five commodities: crude oil, gold, silver,
wheat, and corn. Trades can be done with only a 5%(of
the notional value of the contract) deposit into a
commodities margin account, so the leverage is 20-to-1.
This means that if you guess right on the direction of
a commodity, you can make a huge profit in a short
period of time. On the other hand, if the price moves
against you even briefly, it can trigger massive margin
calls and you (or your company) can be wiped out in a
heartbeat. As in the real world of commodity trading,
we have made it EXTREMELY TREACHEROUS and risky in W$R.
- Commodity futures contracts are traded from 1 to 36
months out on each of the five commodities. Futures
prices usually are higher than the "spot" price of
a commodity, reflecting to some extent the time value
of money tied up in such contracts. (This condition is
called "contango.") However, in somewhat rare instances,
such as when interest rates are very low and a commodity's
price is expected to fall, futures may trade at less
than the spot price, a condition called "backwardation."
- In order to initiate commodity trades, players or
companies must have at least a "BBB" credit rating.
Both players and companies must maintain a commodities
margin account equal to 5% of the value of the futures
contract plus any accrued loss on the contract if the
price moves against you (or less any accrued gain if
the market price of the futures moves favorably for you).
Corporations with commodity futures positions must close
all such positions if their credit rating falls to "CCC"
or worse.
- The main W$R screen has been modified to show constantly
updated spot prices for gold, silver, wheat and corn.
(Prior versions already showed the spot crude oil price.)
The "Entity Info" pop-up menu now has an additional button,
the "List Commodities" button, that lists all futures
contracts held or sold short by the current Active Entity.
Clicking on the line item for any such contract allows you
to instantly close out some or all of that position if you
control the entity. Also, the Buy/Sell pop-up menu has a
new "Trade Commodities" button. Click on it to view a
trading menu on which you first select a commodity to trade,
then decide whether to buy it, sell it short, or buy back
(cover) some or all of an existing short position in the
selected commodity or sell all or part of an existing long
position in that commodity.
- Gains or losses on commodity trades are treated as capital
gains or losses in W$R, for players. For corporations, they
are generally treated as "extraordinary" gains or losses,
and do not affect operating income. However, companies in
certain industries can hedge certain commodities that are
closely related to their business, and the gains or losses
for them are treated as part of operating income, thus
affecting reported operating earnings per share. For
example, oil and oil service firms that hedge by buying
and selling crude oil futures treat gains or losses as
operating income, and likewise for Agribusiness companies
that hedge by trading wheat or corn, or Precious Metals
companies that trade gold or silver. Companies for which
certain commodities are a key cost input may also hedge
and treat the gains or losses as operating income -- for
example, Packaged Foods companies that trade wheat or
corn futures and Utilities or transportation companies
(Rail, Airline, Shipping, Trucking, Air Freight Couriers)
that trade crude futures, since fuel is a major cost input
for companies in those industries.
- Estimated income tax calculations are changed in this
release. In prior versions, estimated taxes for players
were calculated by extrapolating the tax accrued so far
each year out to the end of the year. In this version,
if the tax accrued so far includes capital gains, the
estimated tax for the whole year is calculated by
extrapolating only the "ordinary" taxable income earned
thus far and adding to that the tax on capital gains
that have been recorded so far during the year. Thus,
it is now no longer assumed that any more capital gains
will be recognized during the rest of the year when
projecting the total income tax liability that may be
owed for the year.
- In previous versions, players could buy or sell newly
created stock options with a strike price at up 50%
above or below the current stock price, which made it
possible to, for example, buy long-term calls on a
stock for a price that barely exceeded the intrinsic
("in-the-money") value of the option, by buying calls
at a strike price 50% below the stock price. In this
release, new options can only be created with strike
prices of no more than 25% above or below the current
stock price. Thus, you will now have to pay a fairly
significant time value premium (in addition to the
intrinsic value of the call) even if you buy a call
with a strike price at the lowest price now possible,
at 75% of the stock's current price, unless you are
buying a call that expires in a near month.
- This release is file-compatible with saved game files
from prior versions 3.10 through 5.40, but not with
versions prior to 3.10. (Note that files saved with
a newer version cannot be used in an older version,
so if you are playing with another person and by
e-mailing the saved data file back and forth after
you each take your turn, you must both be using the
same registered version of Wall Street Raider.)
- 5.40 -- Released: June 25, 2010 (Minor release)
- Rules have been changed for exercise of put or
call options. In prior versions, an option could
not be exercised if doing so would give a player
or company control of the company whose stock was
obtained by exercising the option. In the new
version, you are prohibited from gaining control
via an option exercise only if gaining control
of the target company would cause you to violate
antitrust rules about dominating too large a share
of any industry group.
- Clicking on the "GO" button on the main screen
now has an added function, besides making a
company whose stock symbol you have entered
next to it become the "active entity." In this
new version, clicking on "GO" is also a quick
way to close all the "child" dialog boxes that
you may have open at the moment, even if some or
all of them have been minimized. If the stock
and news tickers were running, but had paused
when you opened any such child dialog boxes, the
tickers will resume movement when the dialog
boxes are closed.
- When a company earnings report pops up while the
ticker is running, that company's stock symbol
is now temporarily placed in the stock symbol box
next to the "GO" button, so that you can simply
click on the "GO" button to select that company
as the new "Active Entity," in case you want to do
research regarding that company, or perhaps have
it do a transaction, if you control it. If you
don't click on the "GO" button, the Active Entity
will remain unchanged from what it was before the
earnings report popped up, and its name and stock
symbol will automatically re-appear once you close
the earnings report screen.
- This release is file-compatible with saved game files
from prior versions 3.10 through 5.30, but not with
versions prior to 3.10. (But note that files saved
with a newer version cannot be used in an older
version, so if you are playing with another person
and e-mailing the saved data file back and forth
after you each take your turn, you must both be using
the same registered version of Wall Street Raider.)
- 5.30 -- Released: October 1, 2009 (Minor release)
- A new button function ("Prepay Income Tax" has been added
to the "Misc. Menu" on the main W$R screen. Players can
use this function to add to the estimated income tax paid
for the current year. While the W$R program automatically
sets aside up to 90% of your year-to-date income tax
liability at the end of each quarter, you may still owe
a large tax bill some times, at the end of the year. This
feature lets you prepay your expected taxes NOW, so you
won't forget and invest all your cash in assets that you
might be forced to sell at year-end, if you owe a
significant amount of taxes at that time.
- In prior versions of W$R, when a company "spun off"
stock of a subsidiary in a TAXABLE spin-off, each
recipient of the subsidiary stock was fully taxable
on the distribution, in an amount equal to the value
of the stock received. This version makes a change in
that rule, so that a distribution to a corporation
that owns 80% of more of the distributing company
is treated as nontaxable, even if the spin-off is
otherwise a taxable one. This is congruent with the
W$R rule for "extraordinary dividends" to an 80%
parent company, which are also non-taxable, like
other (regular) dividends to an 80% parent. Other
refinements to the information provided during a
spin-off have also been made, as well as to the
tax treatment of the dividends to different classes
of shareholders (individuals, corporations owning
under 20%, or 20% to 79%) when a spin-off is taxable.
(Corporations that receive dividends are only taxable
on 30%, 20% or 0% of the dividends they receive in W$R,
depending upon whether they own under 20%, under 80%,
or over 79% of the paying company.)
- This release is file-compatible with saved game files
from prior versions 3.10 through 5.20, but not with
versions prior to 3.10. (But note that files saved
with a newer version cannot be used in an older
version, so if you are playing with another person
and e-mailing the saved data file back and forth
after you each take your turn, you must both be using
the same registered version of Wall Street Raider.)
- 5.20 -- Released: July 1, 2009 (Minor release)
- In this version, if an anti-trust lawsuit is initiated
against a defendant company, the company incurs an
immediate charge (an accrual) to the current quarter's
earnings for the estimated after-tax costs of legal
fees to defend against the suit, and that amount is
added to its Reserve for Contingencies. Later, when the
antitrust suit is litigated, the pre-tax cost of the
actual legal fees the company pays at that time will
also be charged to income, but will be offset by a
credit to income equal to the after-tax cost of such
legal fee expenses, by withdrawing that amount from
the contingency reserve, to the extent the reserve
is still large enough to cover such costs. Thus, the
legal fees expense will be recognized in the quarter
when the lawsuit is initiated, not when the case is
litigated (unless the reserve has been eliminated for
other reasons first, such as to manipulate earnings).
- Any taxes on capital for the upcoming quarter are
now shown as a liability on a company's balance sheet,
as a separate line item just below the "Accrued Income
Tax Payable" line item.
- The main screen now shows, at all times, the date of
the next earnings report release for the current
"active entity" (if it is a corporation).
- The "Database Search" screen now includes an item for
selecting stocks based on Analyst's Rating, which can
be used to only select stocks with a "Strong Buy" rating,
or any of the other 4 rating categories: "Buy," "Hold,"
"Sell," or "Strong Sell."
- After clicking the "Who's Ahead?" button, the screen
that comes up now displays the difficulty level (1 to 4)
at which the current game is being played.
- This release is file-compatible with saved game files
from prior versions 3.10 through 5.10, but not with
versions prior to 3.10. (But note that files saved
with a newer version cannot be used in an older
version, so if you are playing with another person
and e-mailing the saved data file back and forth
after you each take your turn, you must both be using
the same registered version of Wall Street Raider.)
- 5.10 -- Released: May 1, 2009 (Minor release)
- The automatic addition of stocks to the Streaming Stock
Quotes List can now be turned off, if desired, using a
toggle item on the "Settings" pulldown menu.
- A new "Clear" button has been added to the Streaming Stock
Quotes List section on the main screen. Click on it to
clear the entire streaming quotes list, if you decide
you want to start a new list from scratch.
- A new "Fill" button has been added to the Streaming Stock
Quotes List section on the main screen. Click on it and
any stocks you own (or are short) will be added to the list,
if the list is not full. In addition, if there are still
any open slots, any other companies you control will then
be added to the list,
- The six types of new taxes (on capital) that were added by
Version 5.0 will now only be imposed if you are playing at
the new Difficulty Level 4, which is otherwise identical
to Difficulty Level 3. Thus, when playing at the highest
difficulty levels, you will now be given a chance to choose
whether or not any of those taxes might be applied, (in case
you think that dealing with a number of punitive new taxes
on capital and wealth is a bit "too realistic" for you).
- The bonus compensation formula for CEO's has been
completely revised and made more complicated. However,
if you control 51% of a company's stock, you will continue
to earn a bonus at least equal to 100% of your salary,
even if the company is performing miserably. Otherwise,
if you control less than 51% of the stock, bonuses are
now more difficult to earn, as the company must increase
earnings by 15% over the prior year to earn a bonus of
150% of salary, and no bonus at all is earned in the
calendar year in which you become the CEO. But if your
company increases earnings by 15% each year for two years
after you became CEO, your bonus is 300% of salary in the
second year; add a third consecutive year of 15% earnings
increases, and the bonus is 500% of salary in the third year
(and each of those percentages is doubled if you control 51%
or more of the stock -- so you could conceivably earn
bonuses equal to as much as 10 times your base salary).
- Also, the program now keeps track of the year in which
you were elected CEO of a company, and you won't earn
any bonuses except for the years AFTER the year you were
hired AND where a company has a string of 15% of better
earnings increases. (This feature was added so that you
can't take control of a company with a history of earnings
increases, make yourself its CEO, and begin collecting huge
bonuses based on what the company did before you arrived).
The only exception is when you control 51% or more of the
stock of the company, in which case you receive a minimum
bonus equal to 100% of salary, regardless of earnings
performance or when you became the CEO.
- Other minor changes: When changing the name of a company
(when doing a startup or otherwise), the old, discarded
name would previously appear on the streaming stock quotes
list for a while, until the stock ticker ran for few moments
and replaced it with the new name when updating the list.
Now the new name replaces the old one on the list immediately.
Also, when doing a startup of a new company, the company
could sometimes be confronted almost immediately with an
"ethical choice scenario," unless Cheat Mode was turned off.
Now, in the registered version only, a startup won't be
offered such an ethical choice dilemma until it has been in
existence more than 2 years, which is a bit more realistic
for most scenarios.
- The algorithms for adjusting the terms of options contracts
have been improved to better reflect transactions such as
spin-offs, extraordinary dividends, stock offerings, mergers,
and stock buy-backs, to prevent "unfair" losses or windfall
gains on options held or shorted on companies doing such
transactions.
- This release is file-compatible with saved game files
from prior versions 3.10 through 5.0, but not with
versions prior to 3.10. (But note that files saved
with a newer version cannot be used in an older
version, so if you are playing with another person
and e-mailing the saved data file back and forth
after you each take your turn, you must both be
using the same version of Wall Street Raider.)
- 5.0 -- Released: April 1, 2009 (Major release)
- Options trading has now been extended to all corporations.
All corporations except banks and insurance companies are
now allowed to buy put and call options, sell "covered
calls" against stocks they own, or sell naked puts or
calls. They may purchase puts or calls if they have the
cash to do so, but may only sell "naked" puts or calls
if they meet certain creditworthiness requirements,
including a minimum "BBB" credit rating. As in the
previous release, a corporation controlled by a player
cannot sell naked calls on a stock also controlled by the
player, or buy puts on such a stock, except to the extent
the parent corporation is selling calls and/or buying
puts to hedge its ownership of stock in the subsidiary,
in order to prevent conflicts of interest (using options
as the equivalent of short-selling stock of a company
you control).
Banks and insurance companies are only allowed to sell
"covered calls" against stocks they own, or buy puts
to hedge such stock positions (or do some combination
of the two). They may not speculate by buying calls or
selling "naked" puts or calls. However, they may buy
back calls they have sold short or may sell puts they
have bought as hedges.
- While corporations (other than banks and insurance
companies) can usually speculate by selling "naked"
puts calls short, there are limits based on the
seller's financial strength. To make such "naked"
option short sales, a corporation but have at least
a "BBB" credit rating or higher, and cannot sell
naked options if doing so would cause the total
short liability (to buy the naked options back)
to exceed 25% of the selling company's net worth.
Thereafter, if the short liability exceeds 50% of
net worth, the selling company will have to buy
back some or all of the shorted options.
- In this new version, buying or selling options may
sometimes be limited, since the Options Exchange now
must lay off the risk for each new option you create,
by finding a corporation that is able to take the other
side of the contract. Thus, if you wish to buy calls
on 5% of IBM, the program will search for a seller
corporation that is able and permitted to sell calls
short on 5% of IBM, under the same terms (same option
exercise price and maturity date). If your transaction
is too large, or if you have created too many large
options contracts, you may not always be able to find
a counterparty, at some point. (It is no longer an
infinite financial universe in W$R....)
- The main W$R screen has been improved in a number of
ways, to enhance usability and appearance. Six additional
buttons have been added to the main screen "Quick Search
Functions" area, so it is no longer necessary to open up
a menu to bring up a Research Report, Earnings Report,
Financial Profile, Shareholder List, Portfolio List, or
Options Portfolio List. One mouse click now brings up any
of those items. Three buttons that were formerly on the
main screen (Market Share, Most Cash, and Largest Tax
Losses) have been moved to the General Research menu.
To view new main screen, click here.
- A new button has been added to the General Research Menu,
the "Largest Market Cap" button. Click it and a list of the
100 largest companies will be displayed, ranked by their
stock market capitalization (stock price times number of
shares issued = capitalization). This list also shows each
company's credit rating and who, if anyone, controls it.
- Buy Call, Sell Call, Buy Put, and Sell Put buttons have
been added to the Buy/Sell Menu, for all corporations, now
that options trading is permitted for all corporations.
- If there are any open slots on the Streaming Quotes List
(which displays streaming quotes for up to 15 stocks),
a stock will now be added to the list automatically if
it is selected as the "Active Entity" (unless you have
recently deleted it from the list).
- In the previous release, a feature was added that allowed
a player to manipulate the earnings of a company of
which he or she was the C.E.O., by adding to or drawing
from "contingency reserves." This release extends that
feature to any company that a player controls, whether
or not he or she is C.E.O. of that company. Buttons for
these functions have been added to the "Other Trans."
Menu. The prior restriction, allowing such transactions
only for a company of which you were the C.E.O., was
too easy to get around, and simply was an unnecessary
annoyance, so we have eliminated the C.E.O. requirement.
- In prior versions, you could use the "Spread Rumors"
feature to bring down the stock price of a competitor's
company, just before a game ends, so that there is no
time for the opponent to sue you for slander and possibly
win a judgment against you. In this version, you can no
longer use the "Spread Rumors" feature in the last year
of a game.
- In keeping with the spirit of these dismal times, we have
decided that you fat-cat billionaire players, Big Oil,
and other greedy mega-corporations were getting away with
not paying enough taxes (since the maximum income tax rate
in W$R only goes as high as 75%), so we have added a few
new taxes on capital, none of them deductible from your
income tax, to make life more interesting and more like
today's mad, mad world. These new taxes on capital, which
can pop up at any time (and can sometimes get repealed)
are as follows:
- A "Wealth Tax" (annual) on players, but only to the
extent your net worth exceeds $1 billion U.S. (or the
equivalent);
- A "Windfall Profits Tax" on capital assets of oil and
oil-related industries that applies when oil prices
are high, regardless of whether the companies have any
profits;
- A "Health Care Tax" that can be imposed on the capital
assets of drug and biotech companies, as well as on
health care providers and medical equipment companies;
- A "Corporate Shares Tax" that can be imposed on
corporations that are incorporated in the U.S.
and some other countries (paid by the shareholders
of those companies, based on the stock values);
- A global warming "Carbon Tax" on a wide range of industries
that either produce energy or consume a lot of it,
like airlines, rail, trucking, and utilities, based
on their capital (business) assets, not on profits
(Chinese and Indian companies are exempted); and
- A "Personal Holding Company Tax" that applies to
a company that is either a "pure" holding/trading
company or has less than 20% of its assets invested
in business capital assets and working capital, if
the company is owned directly (26% or more) by you,
the player. This tax is paid by the company on its
net worth (if any) reduced by the amount of its
business assets. (Banks and insurers are exempted.)
Tax rates and details for all these new taxes, and
whether or not currently imposed, can quickly be
found by clicking on the "Economic Statistics" button
on the General Research menu. Each tax is paid quarterly
except the "billionaire's" (wealth) tax, which is paid
at the end of each year.
Of course, not all of these taxes will be imposed
in any one game (usually), and the tax rates are often
rather low, but they will be imposed often enough to
keep things interesting, if you are in danger of
becoming too filthy rich....
- Players who like for their controlled companies to have
high stock prices (a la Berkshire-Hathaway) will no longer
have the stock price automatically split at prices above
1,000. Instead, splits won't be mandatory unless the stock
price rises to 100,000 or above.
- The Chapter 11 Bankruptcy reorganization provisions have
been modified so that companies emerging from bankruptcy
will now usually have at least a "CC" credit rating,
meaning larger writedowns for shareholders and creditors,
but the bankrupted company will now have a somewhat
stronger balance sheet and a better chance of avoiding
another bankruptcy proceeding.
- When trying to change banks, if you have a very large
account balance (cash) to transfer to the new bank, it
will not accept such a transfer of "hot money," which
might have caused its stock to soar -- but only until
you moved the money to yet another bank. (Sound of
another large loophole clanging shut....)
- Players cannot sell "unvested" executive stock options,
but the options "vest" and can be sold when the player
is in dire circumstances and receives a margin call.
In prior versions, a player could create a margin call
situation in order to be able to sell the options, but
now all bonds and stocks must be sold first when a player
receives margin calls or has a negative cash balance that
can't be canceled by borrowing. (Another, small, loophole
closed.)
- This release is file-compatible with saved game files
from prior versions 3.10 through 4.90, but not with
versions prior to 3.10.
- 4.90 -- Released: December 1, 2008 (Major release)
- By popular demand, a print feature has been added
to various research screens, enabling users to print
out a financial statement, earnings report, company
research report, portfolio listing, industry summary,
etc. Dialog boxes whose contents are printable will
appear with a "PRINT" button on the bottom of the
dialog box, enabling one-click printing. (Some
copyrighted material, such as various cheat scenarios,
still may not be printed.)
- As the CEO of a company, you can now "manage" earnings
(to some extent), by underreporting profits, burying
the difference in a "Reserve for Contingencies," for
possible future expenses, such as litigation, product
liability, environmental liability, and the like.
You can add up to 5% of a quarter's profits to this
reserve, which may be advisable if your company is
showing a large profit increase of say, 25% or more.
Reducing that profit report by 5% won't have much
effect on your company's stock price, and you will
be "banking" some of that profit to be taken back
on a future rainy day. (Or, if your company expects
a quarterly loss, you can increase that reported loss
by 10%, as an addition to the contingency reserve --
again without seriously affecting your company's
stock price, since the company is already reporting
losses, and a little larger loss won't be noticed.)
Companies not controlled by a player will also
routinely add to their Reserve for Contingencies,
but only when they are expecting a profit, not a loss.
Once a significant amount of reserves have been set
aside over a number of quarters or years, you may then
want to draw on that account to manipulate earnings
UPWARD. For example, if your company is riding high,
with its stock benefiting from a long string of steady
profit increases, but is finally expecting profits to
drop from $100 million last quarter to $85 million
in the current quarter, you might choose to pull $20
million out of the Reserve, with the connivance of
your accountants, arguing that your reserves were more
than adequate, thus increasing reported profits to
$105 million for the current quarter, and keeping the
steady string of profit increases intact (and your
company's stock aloft). Additions or withdrawals from
the reserve have no tax effect, since additions were
not deductible.
Banks are treated somewhat differently, since
they are much more closely regulated and scrutinized
by the government. Instead of creating a Reserve
for Contingencies for a bank, you simply add
additional amounts to its Bad Debt Reserve, reducing
the need for future additions, but you aren't allowed
to make discretionary reductions of this reserve
(which is only reduced according to a formula
applicable to all banks, based on the size and
quality of its loan portfolio, or when bad debts
are charged off against the reserve).
Two new buttons have been added to the "Other
Transactions Menu" for decreasing earnings (adding
amounts to the reserve) or increasing earnings
(taking amounts back out of the reserve). On or
both of these buttons appear if you are CEO of the
current "Active Entity" and also control it.
- Where a proposed merger is announced regarding
a targeted company that you control, you are now
(as an "insider") prohibited from trading in options
on that company while the merger is pending, except
to close out any existing long or short options
positions on the company. (But you can still buy
more of its stock, in the hope of a quick profit
when the merger goes through, though you will have
to make a "tender offer" at well above the current
market price, which may not be worthwhile. Or, you
may sell your stock if you have doubts about the
merger.)
- Where a holding company you control is about to
try to merge with a target company and you or your
company buy up call options on the target company in
the hope of making a quick profit on the run-up in
its stock when the merger is consummated, you or
your company will now be forced to close the option
positions, based on the target's pre-offer stock price
-- thus closing a big loophole and preventing a
conflict of interest (insider trading).
- The "My News" button functions have been enhanced.
In the new version, this feature will not only
collect and display any recent news items regarding
you, companies you control, or stocks you own directly
(or are short), but now will also look for news items
on any stocks on which you (or any company you control)
has an options position or owns any stock in.
- This release is file-compatible with saved game files
from prior versions 3.10 through 4.80, but not with
versions prior to 3.10.
- 4.80 -- Released: October 1, 2008 (Minor release)
- A player or company owning a put or call option that is
"in-the-money" may now exercise the option prior to its
expiration date, by using the "Exercise Call Option" or
"Exercise Put Option" buttons that have been added to
the Other Transactions Menu. (Such early exercises are
subject to the same limitations as exercise at expiration,
such as not being able to acquire control of a company by
an option exercise, having sufficient funds to exercise a
call option, not buying up the last "public" shares of
a company, and not being able to exercise an "unvested"
executive stock option.)
- When an unrelated company offers to merge with a company in
which you or your controlled companies own stock, you will
now be given a notice of the offer, including the identity
of the offering company and the offer price per share (which
will be paid in the form of the offeror's stock at its value
on the date the merger is consummated). For example, if YourCo
sells for $25 a share and AcquirerCo offers $30 a share, this
means that if the merger occurs, AcquirerCo will issue an
amount of its stock which has a value of $30 for each share
of YourCo. The notice also specifies the date (about one month
ahead) on which you will have to vote your shares for or
against the merger proposal. That will give you a month
(of game time) to do some research on the acquiring company
and decide how you wish to vote.
- Research Reports now show more detail on pending antitrust
lawsuits by or against the company, including the amount
of damages being sued for. (The amounts won't show up if
you load a game file from a prior version, for antitrust
suits that had been filed while playing the older version.)
- A company profile (financial statement) now includes an
additional footnote if there are antitrust lawsuits
pending against the company, indicating its maximum exposure.
- We've plugged a loophole in the prior version, which allowed a
company to make an extraordinary dividend distribution without
an immediate large (downward) adjustment to its stock price,
and plugged a similar loophole regarding a spin-off of stock
of a subsidiary.
- A bug in the tax calculation for exercise of shorted call
options has been corrected.
- This release is file-compatible with saved game
files from versions 3.10 through 4.70, but not
with versions prior to 3.10.
- 4.70 -- Released: July 1, 2008 (Major release)
- Changes have been made regarding "executive stock options"
for company C.E.O.'s, a new feature added in the previous
W$R release. In the new release, such options are still
granted to a C.E.O. early in each quarter (at the middle
of the first month of the quarter), but each such grant
of options on 2% of the employer's stock expires 2 years
after the date of grant. Also, instead of having the
company buy publicly-traded options on its stock and
grant them to the C.E.O., thus hitting the company with
a large expense for the value of the options granted at
the time of grant, now the company only recognizes an
expense to the extent the option has intrinsic value
at the expiration date, at which time the option is
either bought back by the company or, if the option is
exercised, the company issues new stock to the player
but buys back an offsetting amount of stock on the open
market (transferring it to the player at a loss), to
prevent dilution.
- Executive options are restricted, and cannot be sold
for one year after the date granted. However, after
that date, the player may sell the option back to
the employer company (without a commission), at its
current fair market value. Whatever the company pays
the player to cancel the option is an expense to
the company at that time. (In the shareware version,
the options remain restricted until the date of
expiration, at which time they will be exercised or
bought back by the company for their cash value, if
any.)
- Earnings projections for a company now take into
account the value of any executive options that will
be expiring before the end of the quarterly reporting
period, assuming the current intrinsic value of the
option, the excess of the current stock price over
the strike price of the option (if any), will become
an expense at expiration if the stock price does not
change.
- Under the revised rules, if you are C.E.O. of a
company, but lose control of the company AND cease
to be its C.E.O. for any reason (such as resigning of
being fired), any executive stock options you have from
that company that are not yet vested will be revoked
-- that is, forfeited. Thus if you take over another
player's company, XYZ Corp., of which the other player
is the C.E.O., and terminate that player as C.E.O.,
he or she will also lose (forfeit) all the unvested
executive options he or she was granted by XYZ Corp.
- The program will now warn you with an announcement
if you, or a company you control, have option
positions (long or short) that are due to expire
in mid-month in the following month. The announcements
are made just before the end of each month of play.
- Companies are now able to issue new stock (for cash),
at current market value, to the player who controls
the company or to another company (other than a bank)
that is also controlled by the player. This provides
a means of injecting equity capital into a company
that is on the verge of bankrupcty, to help stave
off the bankruptcy. It also can be a useful way for
a parent company to boost its stock ownership to 80%
or more (in order to file consolidated tax returns
with the subsidiary that issues new stock to it), as
in a case where the parent company owns 77% of the
stock and a hostile stockholder holds the other 23%.
Use the "Private Stock Offering" button on the
Financing Menu to either do such a transaction, or,
as in prior versions, to issue stock to an unrelated
"white knight" company as the investor. Unlike public
stock offerings or private stock offerings to unrelated
"white knight" investors, there is no limit on the
number and frequency of the private stock offerings a
company can make to the controlling player or companies
he/she controls.
- Companies with ongoing exposure to asbestos or
"SuperFund" (environmental) lawsuits are no longer
able to float new bond issues or to do public stock
offerings (but may still do private stock offerings or
mergers).
- Adjustments are now made in stock price history (for
stock chart purposes) to accurately reflect stock
issuances and stock buybacks by a company that increased
or decreased its outstanding stock by such transactions.
- The main screen now shows the full current game date
at all times, rather than just the quarter and year,
or the month and year, as in prior versions of W$R.
This is useful to watch, when, for example, you are
awaiting a company's next quarterly earnings report
(the date of which release is shown in a company's
Financial Profile).
- This release is file-compatible with saved game
files from versions 3.10 through 4.60, but not
with versions prior to 3.10.
- 4.60 -- Released: March 10, 2008 (Major release)
- Options trading (call options) has been added for holding/
trading companies and insurance companies, although with
some restrictions that don't apply to individual players,
since the corporations are not subject to any margin
requirements. Thus, an insurance company can only sell
"covered" calls (or buy back such calls it has sold short).
A holding/trading company can sell covered calls and can
also buy calls. Whether options bought or sold by such
corporations can be exercised will depend on the exercise
(or not) setting for the controlling player. If no player
still controls a corporation that has long or short positions
in call options at the time the options expire, the options
will be settled for cash value (if any), rather than being
exercised.
- Executive stock options are now granted to the CEO of a
corporation. Once you've taken control of a corporation
and had yourself elected as its CEO, you not only receive
cash salary and bonuses from the company, but now you will
also receive a grant of stock options (call options) on the
company's stock at the beginning of each quarter. Options are
granted at an exercise price equal to the current stock price,
on 2% of the company's stock, giving you until mid-December of
the next year to do whatever it takes to get the price of the
stock higher. Best of all, the granting of the option is not
taxable to you, the employee, and if you sell the option later,
the amount you receive is taxable at the favorable capital
gains tax rate. However, there is a catch: The options you
receive are restricted and can't (voluntarily) be sold during
the year they are received. (In the shareware version, they
are restricted until the date of expiration, at which time
they will be exercised or sold for cash value, if any.)
There is another major catch, or trade-off, too: The value
of the options when granted is a compensation expense for
the company, which can put a major dent in the company's
earnings, which may cause the stock to fall and your options
to eventually become worthless, unless the company does very
well over the following two years. Thus you will have some
tough decisions to make, whether to elect yourself as CEO of
a company you control, or to instead forego receiving any
salary, bonuses or executive stock options from the company.
- The ability of banks to buy business loans beyond their
cash on hand has been expanded, by also counting the new
cash (deposits) they will obtain from the new loan/deposit
customer if they purchase the loan to such customer from
another bank. This makes it easier for your bank to buy
more or larger loans.
- The program now gives you a warning when an "ethical
scenario" memo is about to be presented, so you won't
accidentally hit the "Enter" key and unintentionally accept
the offered scam transaction.
- The program also gives a player notice in most instances
when he or she has lost control of a company whose stock
he or she directly holds.
- The computer player ("Wally Raider") will now try
to change its bank lender to a bank it controls, if
possible, or else to a large neutral bank, if its loan
is held by a hostile bank (one that is controlled by a
human player).
- The "Controlled By:" label in the upperleft corner of
the main W$R screen, part of the "Active Entity Selected"
group of informational labels, is now clickable. Click
on it when a company name or symbol appears there, and
doing so will instantly select that company as the "active
entity."
- The "normal" oil price in the simulation has been increased
to $100 U.S., now that it seems unlikely that we will be
seeing $50 oil again any time soon, in the real world.
- Currency conversion rates have been updated to reflect
more recent values, in light of the sharp drop in the
value of the U.S. dollar against the Euro, Yen, Canadian
and Australian dollars, and most other currencies since
our last release.
- A tax loophole in prior versions was closed, where a holding/
trading company could buy new business assets to enter an
industry as an operating company without losing its tax
loss carryovers, despite the change in business.
- This release is file-compatible with saved game
files from versions 3.10 through 4.51, but not
with versions prior to 3.10.
- 4.51 -- Released: November 3, 2007 (Minor release)
- Plugged options trading loophole, where player who
acts quickly at start of game to buy call options
on various stocks could often reap enormous instant
profits by the time the stock price "normalizes" at
at a more realistic level. In revised version, options
trading is suspended for the first "month" of play
in a newly started game. Also, since buying options
(such as straddles on a given stock) were too often
profitable, because stocks in W$R are too volatile,
we've "damped down" the volatility a bit and also
made options more expensive to buy (or better to
sell short).
- Stock charts are now available from the beginning of
the game, rather than having to wait until 3 months
of stock price history has been built up. The program
now creates 2 months of "pre-game" stock history for
each company, except for a "startup" company that
you start up during the game, which still must wait
3 months before charts become available.
- Rare but potentially significant bug was fixed, which
probably has existed since we began tying the amount
of a bank's CD customer deposits to cash balances of
its customers (players and corporations that borrow
from that particular bank). Companies hit by huge
losses, resulting in large bank overdrafts could
wipe out their bank, if unable to raise enough cash
from sales of assets to cover the cash deficit,
a result which should not have occurred. Now, if
a customer corporation has an "overdraft" the
negative balance does not reduce the bank's cash
balance. Thus, if XYZ corp has $1,000 million of
cash and is hit by a $20,000 million disaster of
some type, and goes out of existence, unable to
cover the $19,000 cash deficit, the bank's cash
and corresponding deposit liability are each only
reduced by the $1,000 million amount, not by
$20,000 million. (Of course, the bank would also
have a loss on any loan it had made to XYZ, if
any, as well.)
- Minor changes in the rules for tax-free spin-offs
have been made, regarding a company's history
as having been an 80%-owned subsidiary of another
company for 5 or more years, and thus being eligible
for a tax-free spin-off. In this new version,
certain nontaxable transactions, such as dropping
the stock of an 80% subsidiary down into another
100%-owned subsidiary, will no longer require the
transferred sub to have to start a new history as
an 80% sub -- its existing history will "carry
over" in such a transaction. Similarly, if the
stock of C is 80% owned by B, and B is liquidated
(in a tax-free liquidation) into company A, C's
5-year history as an 80% sub of B will carry over,
even though C has now become a sub of Company A.
- This release is file-compatible with saved game
files from versions 3.10 through 4.50, but not
with versions prior to 3.10.
- 4.50 -- Released: September 1, 2007 (Major release)
- Newly released Wall Street Raider v. 4.50 now includes
stock charts for each of the 1590 corporations in the
simulation. Each stock chart shows up to 60 months
of recent stock price activity for a company (in the
simulation), showing the high, low, and last price of
its stock for each month in the period covered, which
can give you a good sense of how a company is prospering
(or not), at a glance. (Stock charting is not implemented
in the "shareware" version of W$R, only in the registered
version.)
- A new "Stock Chart" button has been added on the main
W$R screen, in the "Other" grouping of menu buttons.
To view a stock chart for the currently selected
"Active Entity" (if the selected entity is a corporation,
rather than the individual player), you simply click
on this new button.
- A new "pull-down" menu has been added to the main
W$R screen, the "Settings Menu." A number of menu
items from the formerly lengthy "Game Options Menu"
have simply been moved to this new menu, such as
Ticker Speed, Currency selection, Cheat Mode,
Select Law Firm, Suppress Pop-ups, Suppress Earnings
Reports, AutoSave, and the Exercise Options? item.
In addition, a new menu item, "Stock Chart Size" has
been added to this menu, allowing you to toggle back
and forth between large- or small-sized stock charts,
whichever you prefer to view, when using the new stock
charting feature. (This item is "grayed out" on the
Settings Menu in the "shareware" version.)
- Now that the software keeps track of each company's
stock price history for the most recent 5 years, a
new line item has been added to the Financial Profile
for a company, in the "Stock and Earnings Data" section
of the Profile, showing the 52-week high and low prices
for the company's stock (adjusted for any stock splits
or other equity changes).
- Prior versions of W$R left open a loophole that allowed
users to sell a stock short, then use a controlled company
to directly or indirectly take control of the shorted
company, and then (after stopping the stock ticker)
having the shorted company make several huge restructuring
expenditures, or do various financially damaging actions,
driving its stock through the floor. That made it easy
to pocket a quick profit on the short sale of the stock.
That is no longer possible, as you may no longer maintain
a short position in stock of a company you control, due
to the obvious conflict of interest as an "insider."
- This release also plugs a similar, but smaller loophole,
where a player who owned, for example, 50% of a company could
sell calls against that 50%, then sell 30% of the stock, so he
or she might still control the company, and could then engage
in various losing transactions that would trash the company's
stock, thus potentially making more on the short calls on 50%
of the company than he or she would lose on the 20% of the
stock still owned. In the prior release, this "excess" short
options position would eventually be corrected, by a forced
sale of the excess short calls (and/or long puts), but not
until the company next reported its quarterly earnings. That
is no longer possible, as any "excess" hedges will have to
be covered immediately after the player sells part of the
stock he or she owns (the sale of 30% in the above example),
if more than fully hedged after the sale.
- Currency conversion rates have been updated to reflect
more recent values, in light of the sharp drop in the
value of the U.S. dollar against the Euro, British pound,
Canadian and Australian dollars, and most other currencies
since our last release.
- A new "global warming" news scenario pop-up has been added,
and various fictional company names have been replaced by
names of hot new (real-world) companies, such as Chipotle
Mexican Grill in the restaurant industry.
- A number of refinements have been made to the bankruptcy
procedures, so that banks that fail and are resuscitated
by a government injection of funds now receive enough such
funds to make the revived bank relatively healthy, rather
than barely alive (as before). Also, when a corporation
goes bankrupt, while owing bank loans, the bank will now
usually receive a significant percentage of the stock in
the reorganized company, in exchange for the loan write-off.
In prior versions, the bank only received stock in the
bankrupt company when the old shareholders lost all of
their stock in the reorganization. That is no longer a
prerequisite.
- Minor bug fixes, to the pull-down menu items for several
types of settings, such as "Suppress pop-ups," which did
not always correctly show the current setting, and also
to prevent pop-up announcements or earnings reports
regarding stocks controlled by the Computer player, when
it is taking its turn.
- The new version is compatible with saved game data files
from Versions 3.10 through 4.10 (but not with data files
saved by versions earlier than 3.10). However, game data
files saved with this new version will take quite a bit
longer to save (or retrieve), as they are about 10 times
as large as the data files from 4.10 or earlier versions,
due to the huge amount of stock price historical data for
each of the 1590 companies that the program must now save.
- 4.10 -- Released: February 15, 2007 (Major release)
- Stock options (puts and calls) may now be made
exercisable at expiration date by the player who
owns options or has sold them short. An on/off
"toggle" item on the "Game Options Menu" lets you
prevent all option positions from being exercised
(they are settled at intrinsic value, if any, as
in v. 4.0, in that case), or to choose to have all
options exercised, subject to certain exceptions:
- Only options that are "in-the-money" at expiration
date will be exercised.
- Long call options will only be exercised to the
extent there is "public" stock available for you
to acquire. The same is true if you are short put
options. But you may not acquire enough stock
through the exercise of long calls/short puts to
acquire all the remaining "public" stock of a
company, or enough stock to give you control of
the company, if you did not previously have
control. (This is to prevent you from using a
back-door scheme to get control of companies in
order to evade anti-trust law restrictions on
acquisitions.) Long calls or short puts will
also not be exercised if you don't have the buying
power to acquire the underlying stock, or if you
already have 15 stocks in your individual stock
portfolio (the limit), and can't add another.
- Shorted call options will only be exercised to the
the extent you are long the stock, which will be
called away. (No short position in the stock will
be created.) The same is is true if you have a
long position in puts. Any short calls or long
puts that are in-the-money and that exceed the
amount of stock you own will be "settled" at their
intrinsic value. Thus, if you have 7% of ABC stock,
and own puts on 10% of the stock, which are
"in-the-money," 7% of the puts will be exercised
to "put" your stock at the exercise price, and
the other 3% of the puts will be "settled" (sold)
at their in-the-money value on expiration date.
(Note: Options trading features are enabled only in
the registered versions of Wall Street Raider, not
in the shareware version.)
- More company name items have been made "clickable"
in the Personal Financial Profile and (corporate)
Financial Profile screens, where company names or
stock symbols appear. Clicking on any such name or
symbol will change the Active Entity to that
corporation.
- "Mercy sales" of options you own that are worthless
(no bid) are now possible, thanks to the generosity
of your broker, who will now pay you a pittance to
buy such options from you to let you close out your
loss for tax purposes, without having to wait until
the option expires. How nice of your stockbrokers....
- In the Industry Summary screens, we have inserted
markers by the price-to-net worth number for some
companies, as was added in Industry Projections
screen in the prior release: _P by companies you
control, _H to mark companies controlled by hostile
(other) players, and _C to mark companies that are
controlled by another corporation. Now you will
be able to see, at a glance, who controls which
holding companies, banks and insurers (for which
there are no Industry Projection screens).
- To prevent players from making insider profits
by buying large numbers of call options on
stock of a company (or selling puts short on it),
and then forgiving an advance to the company in
order to boost its net worth and stock price,
such conflicts of interest now prohibit you from
doing a forgiveness of an advance if you are long
call options or short put options on the company's
stock.
- To prevent players from building up long chains of
controlled companies, all highly leveraged so that
most or all will go bankrupt eventually, and
profiting by selling the stocks short or by buying
puts (or selling calls short) on such stocks, an
obvious conflict of interest, the simulation now
will generally prohibit short-selling of the stock
(or call options) or of buying put options on a
stock you control. An exception is that you can
buy enough puts to protect your long position in
a stock or sell "covered calls" against it, but
cannot sell, for instance, calls on 50% of the
stock if you only own 40% of it directly. These
restrictions do not apply if you don't control
the company whose stock you are shorting or are
selling "naked" calls short against (or buying
puts on).
- Where a player forgives an advance to a company
when he or she owns 100% of the stock directly,
the forgiveness is no longer a capital loss and
is not income or a taxable event for the company.
Instead, in that case it is treated as just a
contribution to capital, which increases the
player's tax basis in his or her stock in the
company.
- The Computer player has a few new refinements, including
the ability to pay off a "frozen" loan and change
its bank lender to a friendly (controlled) bank.
- A new Drug/BioTech disaster scenario was added.
- Various minor refinements to options trading;
Financial Profile display improvements, including
display of the "call price" for redemption of a
company's bonds and whether or not they are
currently callable.
- New "Quote of the Day" feature added (except in
the shareware version). Each time you start Wall
Street Raider, a "quote of the day" will be
flashed on the screen, from a collection of
"in-your-face" and wryly cynical observations
by everyone from Aesop in 600 B.C. to Napoleon
to Winston Churchill to Woody Allen.
- Compatible with saved game data files from Versions 3.10
and 4.0.
- 4.0 -- Released: October 11, 2006 (Major release)
- Not compatible with saved game files from prior
versions earlier than 3.10.
- Now includes trading of put and call options on
any "publicly-traded" stocks, for periods of one
to 24 months. (NOT ENABLED in shareware version
of Wall Street Raider.) Players can buy options,
sell covered calls or covered puts, or sell
"naked" puts or calls. With the leverage
afforded by options, you can increase your
profits massively if your bet on a big move
in a stock's price turns out to be correct --
or lose your entire investment in an option
purchase if you're wrong! (We also changed
the name of the "Options Menu" at the top
of the main screen to the "Game Options Menu,"
so no one will be confused, thinking there is
something on that menu that pertains to put
and call options -- there isn't. Items on that
menu deal with choices you make such as turning
off Cheat Mode, setting the Ticker Speed from
1 to 100, etc.)
- The W$R strategy manual (electronic) has been
updated fully to reflect the introduction of
options trading, including detailed discussions
of margin rules affecting long and short option
positions, plus extensive analysis of various
types of put, call, and straddle strategies.
- We've plugged a tax loophole with regard to
short-selling. In the prior version (3.10),
it was possible to sell stock short in a
company you control and then have the company
pay out a large dividend. Since, as a short
seller, you would have to pay out the amount
of the "short dividend" on the shorted stock,
you were allowed to deduct that expense. Then,
because the large dividend would greatly
reduce the stock's price, you could cover your
short position and reap a capital gain. Thus,
even if you just broke even, you would have a
large "ordinary" tax deduction, reducing your
regular (high tax rate) taxable income, while
generating an almost automatic capital gain,
taxable at a much lower tax rate than ordinary
income. In this new version, any such "short
dividends" you must pay on a short position
when the stock pays a dividend are now treated
as capital losses, which will offset your
capital gain if you cover your short for a
profit after the dividend is paid out and
reduces the stock's value.
- In the Industry Projection screens, we have
inserted markers by the market share number
for some companies: _P by companies you
control, _H by companies controlled by
hostile (other) players, and _C by companies
that are controlled by another corporation.
- The main screen now displays the Month/Year
of play, rather than the Quarter/Year. In
addition, if you click on the "Financial
Profile" for a corporation, it will tell
you the current (game) date, and also the
date on which that company will next report
earnings.
- 3.10 -- Released: December 21, 2005 (Major release)
- Not compatible with saved game files from prior
versions, due to addition of new data arrays.
- We've filled in the other side of the investment equation, by
adding short selling to W$R, for players. We think you will
enjoy being a "bear" and taking advantage of weak and sick
companies, by selling their stocks short, to drive their prices
down even further. There's something really satisfying about
shorting a high-flyer at $80 a share and watching the stock
collapse to $2 a share, at which time you cover your short for
a massive profit. (But it can be very scary when the stock
you've shorted suddenly turns up, since your liability as a
short seller is unlimited, unlike owning a stock, where you
can only lose 100% of your investment.)
- In this new release of Wall Street Raider, a short margin account
is created for each player when the player sells any stocks short,
with the proceeds of the short sale deposited in this restricted
account. This account is regularly "marked to market" -- cash must be
transferred to the short account when the shorted stock goes up, or
is transferred from the short margin account to the player's unrestricted
cash account (bank account) when the shorted stock or stocks decline in
value. A player must maintain a net worth equal to at least 1/3 of the
value of the shorted stocks -- otherwise, the player gets a "short margin
call" and is required to buy back (cover) some of the short positions, to
reduce the short liability. (Which will tend to drive the stock price up
further, sad to say, if you are still short the stock.)
- A player can sell short up to 20% of the total stock of a particular
corporation. However, since stock must be borrowed from "the Public"
in order to sell it short, all the players, in total, cannot short
more than 50% of the publicly traded stock of any one company. For
example, if only 80% of a company's stock is held by "the Public,"
players may only short half that percentage, or 40% of the company's
total outstanding stock. This means that if you are short a stock,
and some company or other player buys up most of the publicly-owned
shares, reducing the "float," you can be "squeezed" and forced to
cover some or all of your short position. Not a nice thing to do
to a friend or spouse. Short-selling is not for the faint of heart,
in the real markets or in W$R.
- The short sale feature, as implemented, allows players to pursue
new strategies, including doing a "short squeeze" to ruin a
competing player who has a large short position in a stock.
For example, if Player A has shorted 20% of the stock of XYZ
corporation, which has only 40% of its stock publicly traded,
you might "squeeze" Player A and force him/her to cover the
short position (running up the price while doing so), by buying
up most or all of the publicly traded shares. Not only will
the forced covering of the short position by Player A drive up
the price he/she has to pay to buy back the stock, but it will
temporarily raise the value of your XYZ stock. In addition, your
purchase of the remaining publicly-traded stock will also drive
up the value of the stock, raising Player A's cost to cover the
short position when you force him/her to do so. Another way of
squeezing a short seller is to acquire the shorted company in
a merger.
- On the other hand, if a player is short a stock and can find a
way (most W$R players are good at this) to undermine the company
and cause its stock price to drop, the short seller will profit
handsomely. Best of all, if the company goes bankrupt and all
its stockholders are wiped out, the short seller doesn't have
to buy back any stock, and instead pockets a 100% profit on
the proceeds he/she received when shorting the stock. "There's
no ill wind that doesn't blow someone some good...."
- To more realistically reflect current economic conditions, the
"normal" price of oil in this new release is $50 per barrel (vs.
$35 in recent releases, and $20 per barrel for many years in
earlier releases of W$R).
- We've added some new "scenarios," including a major new "Peak
Oil" scenario that can create some very harsh conditions --
unless, of course, you're long on oil and gas stocks, and a
few other types of stocks that benefit from the chaos! (Or
if you've sold short auto companies, airlines, or the like,
which are devastated by the energy crisis.) The Peak Oil
scenario will tend to pop up in about half the games you
play, but will not pop up in the first 2 years of play.
(Sorry, "shareware" version players!) Some times the crisis
will be over almost before it's started, perhaps just after
you've bet the ranch on oil or oil service stocks.... What a
shame!
- We've corrected a couple of minor potential bugs that could
cause sudden enrichment or bankruptcy of a newly-formed bank
in certain circumstances, where the selected currency was the
Icelandic Kronur, Indian Rupee, Japanese Yen, or Korean Won.
- Finally, we've added F1 key functionality to access "HELP"
files at any time when the main screen is visible, plus many
small improvements in the user interface and in various
algorithms (too many to count).
- 3.02 -- Released: May 10, 2005 (Minor release)
- 3.01 -- Released: January 11, 2005 (Minor release)
- Compatible with saved game files from prior version
3.00 only.
- Changed rules, to allow more ruthless tactics by a player
who controls a bank. A bank can now buy up loans of an
opposing player (if the game is played at Difficulty
Level 3, the highest). Or it can buy up loans of a
company controlled by a player, at Difficulty Levels 2
or 3. However, as before, it cannot buy loans that are
currently held by a bank that is controlled by another
player. These rule changes will allow for considerably
more vicious and cutthroat tactics, and makes control
of a bank (and getting your loans from your controlled
bank) even more important than before.
- Added a feature that allows player to have his or her
controlled bank call in a specified percentage of a
loan, from 1% to 50% of the loan balance, rather than
50% only.
- Various minor bug fixes and minor new features, such
as a warning, when you are about to advance money to
a company you control that has a credit rating of
less than "BB," that you will not be able to recall
the advances until the company's credit rating
improves.
- 3.00 -- Released: January 5, 2005 (Major release)
- Not compatible with saved game files from earlier
versions prior to version 3.00.
- Seriously revised user interface. The main screen
has been greatly increased in size, to make room
for listing up to 15 stocks in a "streaming quotes"
section, and for a number of new controls that have
been added, as discussed below. Clicking on an
"Add/Delete Stock" button lets you either add the
current "active entity" to the streaming quotes
list, or, if it is already on the list, to remove
it, with a single click. As stock prices change,
the new prices of the stocks on the list are
updated, and are shown in blue (if no change),
in green (if up) or in red (if down).
Also, you can quickly select any company whose stock
is on the streaming quotes list by simply clicking on
a "Select" button at the top of the list, and then
double-clicking on the company name, from a pick list
that will be displayed. Doing so selects that company
as the "active entity."
- A "My News" button has been added, as a result of a
suggestion of a user in Spain. Click on it to see all
recent news items on any stock you own directly, or
that you control indirectly, or any news items that
mention you.
- In the past, it was often annoying, when pulling up
research information on a company you own, and
one that it is about to buy or sell, to have to enter
the stock symbol or pull up a list of companies to
select the other, when going back and forth between
the two companies. Now, the program keeps track
of the current "active entity" and the previously
selected "active entity." For example, if the
current active entity is ABC and the most recent
previous active entity you had selected was XYZ,
a newly added button on the main screen will read
"Select XYZ" -- so you can re-select XYZ as the
current active entity with a single click on that
button.
In addition, the program now "remembers" each
player's last selected "active entity" and second
to last selected active entity, so when your turn
ends, and it later becomes your turn again, to use
the above example, those two entities are again
reflected immediately on the screen, with ABC as
the "active entity" and XYZ shown on the "Select XYZ"
button.
- A number of new button controls have been added to
main screen, both to improve ease of use of the
program, and to add new search features that users
have requested. These eight buttons are as follows:
- Two new buttons in the "Transactions" section of
the main screen: A "Buy Stock" button and a "Sell
Stock" button. These are not new, but simply
duplicate such buttons that are also found in the
Buy/Sell menu. Now, however, you can buy or sell
stock directly from the main screen, without having
to open the Buy/Sell Menu.
- Six new buttons have been added in a "Search Functions"
section of the main screen:
One is simply a direct link to the DataBase
Search feature, which can now be accessed
without first going through the General Research
Menu. A second "Recall" button instantly calls
up an updated list of companies from the
database, using the most recent set of search
parameters you have selected, saving you from
opening the General Research Menu, clicking on
"DataBase Search" and then clicking on "Display
Results." Thus, 1 click now does what took 3
button clicks in prior versions.
Three other search buttons generate ranked lists
of the companies with the largest market shares
in their industries (of at least 20%), companies
with the largest tax loss carryovers (of at
least 10 million or 10 billion, depending on the
currency), and the 50 companies with the most cash.
In addition, a "My Corps" button has been
added in this section, which works in a manner
similar to the "My Corps" buttons on the various
menus, but which can now be accessed directly
from the main screen, with a single mouse click.
- Earnings reports for any company a player
controls now pop up automatically the moment
they are released, during that player's turn.
Also, the most recently selected "active entity"
(before the currently selected "active entity")
will also automatically have its earnings report
pop up when released -- as well as that for the
currently selected "active entity."
See new "suppress" menu item, discussed in the
next paragraph -- which allows you to turn off
this feature, if it becomes annoying.
- New item added to "Options" Menu -- "Suppress
Earnings Reports" item. Toggle this item "ON"
if you control a large number of companies and
are annoyed by the too-frequent pop-up earnings
announcements, each time one of your controlled
companies issues its latest quarterly earnings
report. When this suppress option is turned
"ON," no such reports will pop up, except for
the company that is the currently selected
"active entity" (if any). Clicking on this item
will turn the suppression feature "ON" if it is
currently "OFF," or "OFF" if it is currently "ON."
- Prepayment penalties of 2% of the amount of loan
repayments any of your companies do, using the
"Repay Loan" button, will now apply, if playing at
Difficulty Level 3. However, the penalty is not
imposed if the player who controls the corporation
that is making the prepayment also controls the
lending bank. The penalty also applies when a
company issues corporate bonds, and elects to
apply some or all of the bond issuance proceeds
to pay down bank debt. It also applies when a
company goes through a taxable liquidation and
pays off its bank loan as part of the liquidation
process. (NOTE: The prepayment penalty does
not apply to loan repayments made by the players
themselves, only to corporate borrowers.)
- Spreading false rumors (using the Spread Rumors
button) is still an effective (if dirty) tactic.
However, overuse of this tactic, or engaging in
too many scurrilous activities, may subject you,
the player, to individual liability if the company
you targeted sues you for slander or libel. Thus,
you will need to use that tactic sparingly, in this
and future versions of the program.
- Finally, in addition to numerous small internal
program enhancements, the main screen listing of
indices, crude oil prices, prime rate, etc., has
been augmented by adding displays of the bond
yields (yield to maturity) for the Government
Long Bond and Short Bond.
- 2.50 -- Released: November 1, 2004 (Major release)
- Saved games from versions earlier than v. 2.45 are
not usable with this version. (Version 2.45 saved
games are compatible, except that dividend payouts
will be unusually large in some cases, due to changes
in the way dividend payout data is stored in the new
version.)
- The "normal" price of crude oil has been changed from
$20 per barrel to $35 per barrel, to more accurately
reflect the current real world oil pricing situation.
- Modified percentage of business assets of an industrial
company that must be committed to working capital. In
prior versions, the amount of working capital (inventory
and/or accounts receivable) was a fixed 12% of business
assets. In the new version, 12% is the normal or typical
percentage, but if you increase a company's profitability,
you may be able to reduce the percentage of business
assets that must be committed to working capital, to as
little as 5%. On the other hand, if your company is
poorly managed, it may have as much as 20% of business
assets tied up as working capital. (Business assets are
items such as plant and equipment, airplanes operated by
an airline, etc.)
- Altered "Change Bank" feature in several ways. You no
longer need to pay off a loan in full before you can
change your bank lender -- if the new bank you choose
has enough cash to buy your loan from your current
lender, and if the current lender is not controlled by
an opposing player (who is presumed NOT to want to sell
your loan). Also, if you have a "sick" company with a
large loan it will probably default on, you cannot
have it change its bank to a bank controlled by another
player, "sticking" that player's bank with the bad loan,
unless the loan balance is fairly small.
- Several things were done to plug loopholes in the logic
for insurance companies, to make it harder to become an
"instant trillionaire" by manipulating and creating
gigantic insurance companies.
- Changed the way dividends are set. Rather than pay out
a percentage of the prior year's net income, the dividend
for a company is now set as a fixed dollar amount per
share, even if that means that the dividend exceeds the
company's earnings. You can now set the amount, such as
1.40 per share, that a controlled company will pay (subject
to an upper limit that varies, depending on the company's
creditworthiness). Uncontrolled companies will periodically
raise or lower their dividends, based on various factors,
such as yield, earnings trends, credit rating, industry
and company growth rates, and other complex factors. A
company with a "D" credit rating will cease paying any
dividends almost immediately.
- In the new version, any time a company you control releases
a new quarterly earnings report, the earnings report screen
will immediately pop up. If you control a large number of
companies, and the frequent pop-ups become annoying to you,
you can stop them by turning on the "Suppress Popups"
feature in the "Options" menu.
- 2.45 -- Released: August 1, 2004
- Not compatible with saved game files from earlier
versions prior to 2.45.
- By popular demand, the new version adds a "spin-offs"
feature to the Financing Submenu. Using this button
function, any corporation you own may be able to
"spin off" stock it holds in another corporation to
its shareholders. This can even be done tax-free, if
80% of the stock of the sub is spun off, if the sub
is not a holding/trading company, and if the sub has
at least a 5-year period of operations under its belt.
You can, if you choose, do a taxable spin-off, though
this will usually prove to be costly. However, other
government agencies might block the spin-off if it
would have too serious an effect on the distributing
corporation's creditworthiness, even if you have
gotten a favorable advance tax ruling from the tax
authorities.
We have tried to anticipate and close most of the
largest foreseeable loopholes, but we're quite sure that
creative players of W$R will find many ways to use (and
abuse) the spin-off feature in order to avoid taxes,
merger fees, and for other nefarious purposes. The new
version of the W$R strategy manual has a few suggestions
for ways to use spin-offs that may not be obvious to any
but the most devious players.
- In order to increase the limits on the size of public
stock offerings and bond issuances as the game
progresses, the initial $100 billion (or equivalent
in other currencies) limit on the size of stock
offerings is now indexed, by increasing the limit
by just over 6% annually (1.5% each quarter).
Similarly, the initial $150 billion limit on bond
issuances by a company is also indexed, growing
larger throughout each game at the same 6% annual rate.
The "indexing" begins after the year 2010.
- Two new currency choices have been added, the
Egyptian Pound and the Icelandic Krone, bringing
the total number of currencies for which the game
can be configured to 23.
- SLAM! (The sound of another tax loophole closing....)
Changes have been made so that now when you buy stock
from a related entity (such as a company you control),
and the seller has a loss on the sale, the loss will
be disallowed for tax purposes (and not reported as
a loss for financial reporting purposes), since you
were essentially selling the stock to yourself. In
such cases, however, the higher "tax basis" of the
purchased shares carries over to the buying entity,
so that the disallowed loss is added to the cost of
the shares purchased, for the buyer. To recognize a
loss on stock, it must be sold at a loss to "the
public" or to an unrelated buyer (or must become
worthless in bankruptcy).
- Improvements made to the Customizer Utility program,
to save the original set of corporate names/symbols,
with a "Restore Original Set of Names" button added,
if you wish to go back to using the original set
of names/stock symbols that came with W$R.
- 2.42 -- Released: May 19, 2004 (Minor release)
- Saved game files are compatible only with v. 2.40
and 2.41, but not with saved game files from
earlier releases prior to 2.40.
- Bug fix for some copies of v. 2.41, where the
"AntiTrust Suit" button did not appear.
- Expanded possible types of assets you can contribute
to a wholly-owned bank or insurance company. The
"Capital Contribution" feature now also allows you
to contribute government or corporate bonds to such
a 100%-owned subsidiary. Also, if you own 100%
of a company and also own some of its bonds, you
can contribute some of its own bonds to it (even if
it is not a bank or insurer) and such bonds will
simply be canceled, reducing the amount of the
subsidiary company's bond indebtedness.
- 2.41 -- Release Date: April 17, 2004 (Minor release):
- Saved game files are compatible only with v. 2.40 and
this release.
- Modified so that the stock market index and individual
stock prices react more gradually to changing economic
conditions.
- A new "Resign As CEO" button has been added to the
Management Menu, and appears when the "active entity"
is the player. This allows you to resign your position
as CEO of any company, which will save the company
from having to pay you a salary. (Since the salary
payment will reduce a company's earnings, taking a
salary from a company you own may cause a decrease
in the value of the company's stock, so you may
decide you prefer to stop serving as CEO, and give
up your salary, rather than depress the price of the
company's stock.)
- An "auto save" option has been added to the Options
Menu. Turning this feature on will cause the most
current game data to be saved at the end of each
quarter of play, automatically. This will come in
handy in the event of a power failure (or a dumb
move on your part), as you can always reload the
game and continue play as of the end of the most
recent quarter.
- A new dialog (menu) has been added for capital
contributions, so that a company or player can now
contribute either cash or stock to a 100%-owned
subsidiary, or an industrial company can contribute,
in addition to cash or stock, some or all of its
"capital assets" (business assets) to a subsidiary
that is either in the same industry, or that is a
holding/trading company.
- A corporation's tax net operating loss can still be
carried forward indefinitely, for use in offsetting
taxable income in subsequent years. However, starting
with this release, such unused losses are reduced by
10% of the remaining balance (not reducing the current
year's loss, if any) at the end of each year. This
will put a premium on finding ways to quickly use up
such tax loss carryovers before they expire (shrink).
- Instituted quarterly estimated tax payments for
players, instead of paying an entire year's taxes
at the end of each year. Estimated taxes are
computed each quarter, based on 90% of the tax
on your income to date for the current year. Any
remaining balance is paid at the end of the year;
or, if the estimates result in an overpayment of
the actual tax for the year, the overpayment is
refunded at year-end. All calculations and tax
payments are done automatically for each player.
- A modification has been added so that once there
is only one "surviving" (human) player left in a
game, that player's turn never ends, until the
game ends. The "End Turn" button is grayed out
for the remainder of the game, also.
- 2.40 -- Released: March 1, 2004 (Major release)
- Game data files saved by prior versions of Wall
Street Raider are not compatible with or usable
by this version of the program.
- Players may now make interest-bearing advances (loans)
to any companies they control. The advances are
"demand loans," which means the player can demand
full repayment at any time (usually). However, the
advances are subordinated to any bank loans or bond
indebtedness owed by the company, so you may not be
able to call in an advance if the corporation would
have a credit rating of less than "BB" after the
repayment is made. Thus, you may find in some cases
that you cannot call in the loan (advance), until
the borrower's credit rating improves adequately.
If the borrower goes bankrupt, bank loans and bond
holders receive repayment first, before or with a
higher priority than, holders of demand loans
(advances).
The borrowing company must pay the player interest,
at the current Prime Rate charged by banks, at the
time each interest payment is to be made. (If the
borrower's credit rating falls to "D," then the
interest will accrue -- that is, be added to the
loan amount -- rather than be paid in cash.)
- Two new buttons, "Advance to Corp." and "Recall
Advance," have been added to the "Miscellaneous
Functions" menu, one for making advances to
companies you control, the other for calling in
(demanding repayment) of advances you have made,
from any company, including companies you made
advances to but no longer control.
- A new command button, "List Advances," has been
added to the Entity Research Menu (when the
"active entity" is you, the player). Clicking
on it will cause a display of all companies to
which you have made advances, the amount of each
such advance (loan), and the borrowing company's
credit rating.
- Bank deposits and cash balances now reflect all
changes in cash balances of the bank's corporate
customers, or in cash balances of players who are
customers of that bank. Players and corporations
are required to deposit their cash, as CD's, in
the bank from which they borrow, as a condition
of taking out a loan.
- When you click the "My Corps." button on one of
the transactions menus, you will now see a pick
list displayed, of all the companies you control,
plus certain types of information about each
company, such as recent and projected quarterly
earnings, credit rating, and Analysts' Rating
(buy, sell, hold, etc.) on the company's stock.
Click or double-click on any company name to
select it as the "active entity." (A "My Corps."
button has also been added to the Entity Research
Menu, which appears when you, the player, are
the "active entity.")
- Modified the program so that when one makes any
"management changes" (fires the existing management
team), the results will be apparent somewhat more
quickly.
- The "extraordinary dividend" rules have been changed
(relaxed) somewhat, so that banks or insurers with
"A" or better credit ratings will now sometimes be
allowed to make relatively small payouts of such
extraordinary dividends. Also, distributions of
such dividends, while sometimes fully taxable to
corporate stockholders, are now non-taxable to the
extent paid to an 80% or greater CORPORATE parent,
with which the sub pays taxes on a consolidated
return basis (but in that case will reduce the
recipient corporation's "tax basis" in its shares
of the sub, dollar-for-dollar, yen-for-yen).
- New feature added when doing "capital contributions":
if the parent company is an industrial company (not
a bank, insurer, or holding company) and the sub is
either in the same industry, or is a holding company,
the parent company can "drop down" (transfer) business
assets, as well as cash, to the subsidiary, as a
capital contribution.
- New disaster scenarios added.
- Miscellaneous bug fixes. (Stock ownership reductions
when a bank goes bankrupt, repayment of bank debt
in taxable liquidations, and the stock basis and
gain/loss calculations for the seller, where one
entity buys stock from a related entity.)
- 2.31 -- Released: December 5, 2003 (Major release)
- Game data files saved by prior versions of Wall
Street Raider are not compatible with or usable
by this version of the program.
- While "cheat scenarios" normally only pop up once
each per scenario during any one game, the "strike
scenario" (by angry union employees) may now pop
up more than once, if you do numerous restructurings.
- Junk bond pricing has been refined, so that a minor
change in net worth that changes a bond's rating from
"D" to "C" or from "C" to "D" will no longer have a
major effect on the price of the bonds. As revised,
the worse a "D"-rated company's finances grow, the
lower its bonds will trade, on a gradual basis, until
it becomes clear that the company is almost certain
to have to shed part of its debts in a bankruptcy
reorganization. Previously, a slight decrease in
assets that caused net worth to fall below zero and
the credit rating to fall from "C" to "D" resulted
in a cliff-like drop in the bond price.
- Asset purchase routines have been modified in a
number of ways: A holding company may now enter an
industry by purchasing "new" assets, and not only
by purchasing assets from another company in that
industry. As revised, purchases of highly profitable
capital assets from another (uncontrolled) company
will require the buying company to pay a premium
for the assets purchased, and the more profitable
the assets being purchased (ignoring R&D costs and
market share), the greater the price premium you must
pay. The excess amount, or "goodwill," must be written
off as an expense by the acquiring company, generally
at the rate of 20% of the remaining balance per year.
On the other hand, if buying very UNprofitable assets
(say from a poorly-managed company in a depressed
industry), the buyer may be able to buy capital
assets at a considerable discount. The "discount"
is treated as "negative goodwill" and is recognized
immediately as income (extraordinary income) by
the buyer. The seller will recognize a gain or
loss on the sale, based on the sale price (less a
sales commission paid by the seller).
- In all instances, except where the buying and
selling companies are controlled by the same
player, the company selling capital assets will
incur a "business broker's fee" equal to 10% of
the purchase price. This will reduce the seller's
gain, or increase its loss, on the sale of assets.
- As revised, it will often be impossible to buy
business assets from a company that is earning a
very high rate of return on those assets (ignoring
its R&D or marketing/advertising expenses), as
such companies will usually not be willing to sell.
- The "Sell Business Assets" feature has been refined
to make it possible to sometimes sell business
assets at a net gain, although it will still be
hard to do so if playing at Difficulty Level 3.
- "FILE" menu has been changed, to replace "New Game"
item with "Restart," once a set of new or saved
game data has been loaded into memory.
- 2.30 -- Released: October 10, 2003 (Major release)
- Not file-compatible with data files saved by any previous versions,
since the program now stores a lot of "tax basis" data for stock
holdings of corporations.
- THE TAX MAN COMETH!! Sorry folks, but no more tax-free
capital gains for corporations, starting with this version.
Your "tax-free" days are over, starting with Version 2.30,
which adopts the "U.S. model" of corporate taxation,
subjecting capital gains from sales of stock investments
by a corporation to tax, at regular corporate tax rates.
Before, W$R followed the "European" or "Asian" model
adopted by most developed countries, of not taxing
corporate capital gains. However, we do still give you
one break the U.S. IRS doesn't allow -- you can deduct
losses on such stock sales fully (unlike the real world
IRS rules, that allow NO deduction at all for corporate
capital losses, except to the extent of offsetting
capital gains -- if there are any).
- For financial reporting purposes, now that the program
keeps track of the cost or other, adjusted, tax basis
of stocks owned by corporations, and computes a gain
or loss upon sale or worthlessness of the stock, the
gains or losses are all treated as "extraordinary
items," which are included in TOTAL earnings, but do
not enter into the calculation of the more significant
figure, "operating earnings." However, starting with
the last release, Version 2.22, you may have already
noted that small "extraordinary gains" (or losses),
if they amount, in total, to 5% or less of "operating
income" (or loss) for the quarter, will be lumped in
as an additional item of operating income or loss, and
will not be shown as a separate item, where the amount
is minimal in relation to the operating income/loss.
- A complex system of adjusting the "tax basis" of stock
of an 80% or greater subsidiary corporation has been
added, very similar to the U.S. "consolidated return
regulations." In short, the parent company gets to
increase its tax basis for taxable income of the 80%
subsidiary, less the payment in lieu of taxes that the
sub makes to the parent company on such taxable income.
But the parent company must reduce its basis for the
80% sub's stock to the extent of any taxable loss of
the sub, offset in part by payments from the parent to
the sub for the tax benefit of using the sub's tax loss.
In addition, any tax-free dividend an 80% sub pays out
to the parent company reduces the parent's tax basis
in the sub's stock, dollar for dollar, yen for yen.
- The above basis adjustments, in some rare situations,
may reduce the tax basis of the sub's stock to a
negative amount, which is referred to in W$R (and in
IRS Consolidated Return Regulations) as an "Excess
Loss Account" ("ELA"). As in the real world, if the
parent's stock ownership in the sub is reduced to less
than 80% for any reason, so that the two companies can
no longer pay taxes on a "consolidated return" basis,
any ELA will be triggered and fully recaptured as
taxable income to the parent, which will bring its
basis for the sub's stock back up from a negative
amount to zero. The new help files give examples of
when and how all or part of an "Excess Loss Account"
may be triggered into taxable income for the parent
company. Triggering an ELA recapture will not show
up in your company's earnings report, but will affect
its cash balance when it pays out the recapture tax.
- Notice that an ELA will be triggered as income to
the parent even when the sub goes bankrupt, and its
stock becomes worthless -- so that if there is an
ELA (negative tax basis), a parent company will
actually recognize taxable INCOME, rather than a
loss, if the sub bellies up. (In effect, the parent
has to pay up for having taken more tax benefits
or write-offs than it had invested in the sub, by
recapturing the "excess losses.") However, the
existence of an ELA should be an extremely rare and
unusual circumstance, a situation you may never see
occur, unless you spend a great deal of time playing
Wall Street Raider.
- The only exception (in W$R) to "recapturing" or
triggering taxable income from an Excess Loss Account
when the parent makes a disposition of the sub's
stock is when the sub is liquidated in a tax-free
liquidation. Any other transaction, including an
otherwise tax-free exchange in a merger, where the
sub being acquired had an Excess Loss Account (negative
tax basis) with respect to its stock in the hands of
its former parent company, will trigger the recapture
tax.
- Where an uncontrolled company (not controlled by any
player) seeks to do a merger with a company whose
stock you or one of your controlled companies owns,
the program will now disclose to you the management
rating of the acquiring company (unless it is a holding/
trading company).
- As suggested by users, the "startup" segment, when you
start up a new corporation, now will display a default
name and stock symbol for the company, but will also ask
you at the time if you wish to change either its name or
stock symbol.
- As also suggested by users, after a game ends, the
"File Menu" now includes a "Restart W$R" menu item,
to let you restart the program and either start a
new game, or load and continue playing a saved game.
- This version adds the ability of a bank you control to
sell off individual business loans, or portions of its
consumer loan or mortgage loan portfolio. The "Buy
Loans for Bank" button in the "Other Transactions"
menu has been replaced by a "Buy or Sell Loans" button,
and the same button has also been added to the "Buy/Sell
Transactions" menu. Your bank can now sell mortgage or
consumer loans at face value. Corporate or player loans
can be sold at prices that depend mainly on the borrower's
credit rating, but not exceeding 101 percent of face value.
(And no other bank will buy certain "bad credit" D-rated
loans from your bank, which may soon become worthless.)
- As requested by a number of users, we have added
a "Stock Split" button, to allow you to split a stock
(increase the number of shares by a multiple of more
than 1, up to 10), which decreases the price per share.
It has no more effect than cutting a pizza into 8
slices, rather than 4, but many people think stock
splits are significant. We also have added a "Reverse
Split" button, also to the "MISC." Menu, which allows
you to do a reverse split for any company you control
(reducing the number of shares by a factor of more
than 1, up to 10, which will increase the stock price
per share). A reverse split is the opposite, or mirror
image, of a regular stock split. If you don't like to
see your company's stock trading at 2.50 a share, do
a 1-for-10 reverse split, so it will trade at 25.00.
- An additional limit has been placed on the ability of
a bank to call in corporate loans. In the new version,
you cannot call in 50% of a corporate loan if the
borrower, after selling off all readily saleable
assets (bonds and stocks) has a negative bank account
(i.e., cash) balance at the moment, since there are
no liquid assets to "grab." This feature is designed
to prevent a bank from buying a loan at 90% of face
value, and then quickly doing a series of many 50%
loan "calls," until it has pulled in 99.9% of the
loan, for an easy profit. (One less "loophole.")
- The "Freeze Loans" feature has been modified in
several ways. You can now choose from a list of
your bank's loans, by clicking on the name of the
borrower and either freezing or unfreezing lending
to that particular borrower. Once a loan is frozen,
the notation "Froz." will appear by that loan any
time you click on the "Freeze Loans," "Call in
Bank Loan" or "List Loans" buttons.
- When using the "Freeze Loans" feature, if you don't
click on any specific loan to freeze or unfreeze,
you will then be asked (as in prior versions) if your
bank wants to freeze/unfreeze loans to all competing
players and their companies.
- The "Call in Bank Loan" function has been modified in
several ways. Clicking on this button now brings up a
list of all your bank's loans, and you can click on
any borrower's name to call in 50% of the loan to that
particular borrower. Additional limits have been placed
on the ability to call a company's loan -- you can no
longer do so if the company already has a negative cash
balance and has sold all its liquid assets (stocks and
bonds). This may prevent you from doing repetitive
"calls" of 50% a particular company's loan, over and
over and over....
- When you click on the "Freeze Loans" or "Call in Bank
Loan" buttons, the list of loans will now place an
asterisk (*) after the loan information for any loan
that is owed by a competing player, or by a company
controlled by a competing player, so you can instantly
see if you are "lending to the enemy," in case you want
your bank to freeze or call in loans to competitors or
their companies.
- In prior versions, it was sometimes impossible to sell
off stock of a wholly-owned company. Now, when you
attempt such a sale, you will usually be given the
option of selling 51% of the stock, at a bargain price,
to a "neutral company," if you are really desparate to
sell. Or you may receive an even lower offer, but for
only 20% of the company. If you receive a margin call and
are thus forced to sell off stock in a company when you own
100% of that stock, your shares will be sold at a steep
discount at an impromptu auction. (It will be better, usually,
if you are able to, and aren't in a forced sale situation,
to have the 100%-owned company do a public or private
stock offering, making the stock more readily saleable
afterwards, for your remaining 80% or more of the stock.
But you won't have that chance if you wait until you
receive a margin call from your bank -- you have to sell
stock immediately, at whatever price you can get for it.)
- 2.22 -- Released: August 6, 2003 (Major release)
- Not file-compatible with data files from any previous
versions, due to some major changes in the way game
data is stored in the new version.
- New Korean Peninsula disaster scenario, and Japanese
disaster scenario added.
- Banks with strong reserves will now be able to grow
faster, as they will automatically expand their
deposit base if their reserves (net worth plus bad
debt reserves) exceed certain percentages (8% to 12%,
in various circumstances) of their total deposits.
This also will help healthy banks maintain their
liquidity, and make it less likely that they will be
forced to sell off bonds or loans to raise cash, since
they will now be able to attract more deposits.
- As an underpaid CEO, you'll be happy to learn that
this release of W$R now provides for a "performance
bonus" at the end of each year, in addition to your
base salary as CEO of a company. If the company's
operating earnings for the year are negative, or are
no greater than in the previous year, you receive
no bonus; or, you receive a bonus equal to 150% of
your base salary if you boosted earnings for the
year. However, if you control 51% of the stock of
the company, your board of directors will be more
generous (since you have absolute control), and you
will receive a bonus at least equal to 100% of base
salary, no matter how badly the company performed;
or a bonus equal to 300% of base salary, if you have
managed to increase your company's earnings, compared
to the previous year.
- Added a further refinement to the way earnings are
reported: "Extraordinary items" of income or loss,
if they amount (after-tax) to less than 5% of net
operating income, are now re-classified as part of
operating income or loss, and are no longer reported
as separate items. Larger amounts of extraordinary
items continue to be reported as a separate item,
apart from "operating earnings," as before.
- The program now scans through the list of "busted"
holding companies (those not controlled by any
player, and with no assets remaining other than
cash) and occasionally liquidates some of them,
in taxable liquidations. So, if you have a small
ownership position, under 20%, in such a company,
you may find that it is suddenly being liquidated
and you will receive cash for your stock as the
net assets are distributed. In prior versions, no
such "taxable" liquidations occurred except those
that were initiated by a (human) player.
- When you sell stocks or bonds, the program now
tells you the amount of the taxable gain or loss
on the sale, as well as your percentage gain or
loss on the investment (where the seller is you,
the individual, rather than a corporation).
- When you need to borrow to complete various
transactions, the program tells you how much you
need to borrow, and how that will change your
(or your company's) credit rating and debt-to-equity
ratios, and asks if you want to go through with
the transaction. This new feature applies to stock
purchases, corporate or government bond purchases,
greenmail/LBO stock buybacks, bond buybacks or early
redemptions, and capital asset purchases, and should
be helpful to you in deciding whether a particular
transaction is worth doing, in light of its effect
on your debt-to-equity ratio and credit rating.
- The costs of doing a merger remain the same as in
prior versions, and no fees are incurred if the merger
has to be canceled because one of the two companies
(acquirer or target) already owns 100% of the other.
However, your company no longer will incur the full
costs if the merger is aborted, for any other reasons.
Only 20% of the full cost is incurred if two banks are
refused permission to merge, by bank regulators; only
40% of the full cost is incurred if shareholders
vote down the merger proposal; only 60% of the full
merger cost is incurred if a favorable shareholder
vote is obtained, but the merger is blocked on
anti-trust grounds; only 70% of the full cost is
incurred if other government agencies intervene at a
late stage to block the merger; and only 80% of the
full cost is incurred if divestment of a subsidiary is
required as a final condition to complete the merger,
but you refuse to agree to that condition. All merger
costs are paid by the company that proposed the merger.
- Banks, when buying loans, now have a choice of picking
corporate loans you wish to buy from a list of all bank
loans that are offered for sale. Not listed are loans
owed by any players, by companies that are controlled
by opposing players, loans held by banks controlled by
opposing players, loans held by certain small banks
(with business loan portfolios of $5 billion U.S. or
smaller, or equivalent in other currency, or which
hold only 5 or fewer loans). Also not shown are loans
that are available for purchase, but which are too
large for your bank to buy with its current cash
balance.
- More disclosures added, when an uncontrolled company
offers to merge with a company you own stock in, and
you are asked to vote on the merger: Included now, in
addition to the identity of the acquirer and its credit
rating, are its size (market cap) relative to that of
the target company, and the % of net worth at which its
stock is currently valued and, in some cases, disclosure
that the acquirer has large net operating loss (tax loss)
carryovers that might enable it to shelter the taxable
income of the target company, after a merger takeover.
- 2.21 -- Released: July 9, 2003 (Minor release)
- Added new protections for the "Computer" player, to
reduce its exposure to anti-trust suits, by divesting
itself of some of its companies in industries dominated
by companies controlled by the Computer player, in order
to reduce its dominance.
- Minor bug fixes, to refine "accrued tax" liability that
appears on corporations' balance sheets where groups of
corporations pay tax on a consolidated return basis, and
to correct a tax miscalculation that could occur in rare
situations, where a bank owned 80% or more of a profitable
subsidiary company.
- Added new (rare) economic scenarios, that can appear if
certain unusual econonic situations occur.
- 2.20 -- Released: June 30, 2003 (Major release)
- New version is compatible with versions 2.10 and 2.11
only, but not with game files saved by versions prior
to version 2.10.
- While the main screen user interface looks the same
as version 2.11, this is a major new release, with
a number of profound changes in the simulation. Some
you will like, others you may hate, if they plug up
your favorite "loophole" for making instant megabucks.
- Financial reporting has been significantly modified --
reported earnings (on which stock pricing is partly
based) now reflect a "provision for income taxes,"
rather than actual tax paid, as in real-world financial
accounting for tax expense. In addition, "extraordinary"
or "non-recurring" income or loss items, net of tax
effect, are not included in earnings -- stock prices,
to the extent based on earnings, are now based on a
company's "operating earnings" (although earnings
reports also will separately show the "extraordinary"
items, and the total earnings if extraordinary items
are added in). These changes will make it more difficult
to manipulate a company's stock price by incurring
one-time gains or losses (such as restructuring
expenses, or gains or losses when a company buys
back its own bonds below or above par, or when it
wins an antitrust lawsuit).
- The "computer" player has been completely revamped,
and made more active, smarter, and considerably
more vicious.
- The "Database Search" function has been improved,
thanks to a user suggestion, by no longer listing
and displaying a particular corporate bond issuer,
if there are none of that company's bonds in "public"
hands that you can buy. However, when stocks to buy
are listed, all that meet your search criteria will
be shown, even if none of the stock is held by the
public, since this new release now allows you to do
mergers with any company, even if it is 100% owned
by another corporation that no player controls.
- Now, if you receive a margin call, and will have to
sell stock(s) to raise cash, you are given a choice
of selecting which stock to sell, or else letting
the bank decide on which ones will be sold, randomly.
This courtesy is extended only if the margin call
comes when it is your turn -- otherwise, if it is
another player's turn at the time, the bank will
sell your stocks for you, without bothering to ask
which ones are to be sold.
- A new feature has been added, where companies with
poor credit ratings (D, C, or CC) may occasionally
seek to improve their balance sheets and avoid filing
bankruptcy, by attempting to swap 2 new bonds for
each 3 old bonds (or 1 for 2, in some cases), offering
a higher interest rate, in order to reduce the amount
of outstanding debt. Where you (the player) or a
company you control own some of the company's bonds,
you will be asked if you want to accept the tender
offer of the reduced amount of new bonds. Refusing
will cause the tender offer to be canceled.
- You can now determine, within limits, the percentage
premium you want to offer shareholders of the target
company when your acquiring company proposes a stock-
for-stock merger, generally anywhere from 5% to 100%
over the target company's current price per share. In
all previous versions, the program simply assumed you
were offering 20% over market price for the target. As
you might guess, the higher the premium you offer, the
more likely the public (and corporate) shareholders
will vote to approve the merger, unless your company
is nearly bankrupt, or is a minnow trying to merge
with a whale. However, if you already control the
target company, there is a conflict of interest, so
the underwriters do a "fairness" valuation study,
giving you a range of fair values, such as 6 to 10%
over market value, that you can offer to pay (in
stock) for the target company's stock.
- As in prior versions, all shares of the target in
a merger, if owned by an opposing player or his/her
companies, will be voted AGAINST a merger you propose
with a target company. Also, "neutral" corporate
shareholders (not controlled by any player) will
generally vote AGAINST, if the offer is at a market
premium of less than 20%, as in prior W$R versions.
However, if you offer 20% or more (the higher, the
better your chances), it is possible that some of
the target company's corporate shareholders, if it
has any, will vote their entire bloc of shares FOR
the merger. In fact, if you offer a 75% or greater
premium over current market price, ALL such
corporate shareholders will vote FOR the merger
(unless, of course, your acquiring company is
too small, or is nearly bankrupt). This means
that now, even if XYZ Bank is 100% owned by XYZ
Holding Company, you may be able to acquire
XYZ Bank in a merger, if you offer a high enough
price (at least 20%, more likely 40% or 50%)
to the corporate shareholder (XYZ Holding Company)
in the merger.
- More banking loopholes have been closed, making
it tough to almost instantly create a gigantic
bank that borrows gazillions in cheap interbank
loans and uses the cash to buy up gazillions of
corporate and other loans and bonds, with no limit.
In this new version, a bank that has a negative cash
balance can only borrow up to 2000 million (in
whatever currency) as interbank loans to cover its
deficit cash balance, generally.
If it still has a negative cash balance, it will
next automatically sell most of its government
bonds, and, if necessary, some of its mortgages
and consumer loans. If it still has a cash
deficit, it will then be forced to float an issue
of bonds to shore up its capital, if that is
possible (unless you control the bank). If doing a
bond offering isn't possible, or if the bank still
has a cash deficit after issuing bonds, it will
then take one or more other possible actions,
such as doing a public stock offering (unless a
player controls the bank), selling off shares of
any stocks it owns, and calling in up to 10% of
all its business loans to players and corporations.
If, after all that, it still has a cash deficit,
the bank will then be forced to sell off randomly
selected business loans, one at a time, to other
banks, if it can find buyers.
- Thus, if you set up a small new bank, make yourself
a loan customer, then borrow a large sum from it,
and it has negative cash after making the loan
to you (which can be as much as 25% of its loan
portfolio), it will find the cash somehow, by going
through all the steps described in the above
paragraph, after first borrowing up to 2000 M. from
another bank as an interbank loan. And if it can't
find the cash by any of the above (legitimate) means,
and still has a negative cash balance, it will pay
interest at 8% over the LIBOR rate on the negative
balance (borrowing from the Mob). In short, you will
no longer be able to instantly grow a bank to a vast
size by simply borrowing infinite amounts as interbank
loans. It's getting tougher and tougher to make an
easy buck....
- Plugged another major loophole: Gains or losses on
bond buy-backs by corporations are now treated as
"extraordinary" income or loss, rather than operating
income items. Thus, manipulating the market price of
a company's bonds can still be profitable, but will
no longer affect "operating income" and will not have
nearly as much effect on the stock price of the company
that earns the gain.
- Added new "Suppress Popups" item to "Options Menu."
Toggle this setting on or off, as you prefer, to
suppress or not suppress little popup news items about
companies you control or the current "active entity."
This can be handy, if you own a large number of companies,
and are annoyed by too-frequent news items about your
companies popping up. (Does not suppress major news
announcements, such as bank failures, economic news,
or a new earnings release for the current "active
entity.)"
- 2.11 -- Released: April 28, 2003 (Minor release)
- New version is file compatible with version 2.10 only,
but not with game files saved by versions prior to
version 2.10.
- HTML files for strategy manual in "full package" version
have been replaced with new .CHM type (searchable) files.
- Minor bug fix, regarding treatment of interbank loans,
when one bank is liquidated into another.
- 2.10 -- Released: March 6, 2003 (Major release)
- Note: New version is NOT file-compatible with data
files of games saved by prior versions, due to the
expansion of the simulation and of its database
that must be saved to disk when saving a game in
mid-stream.
- (Bottom line: You won't be able to replay those
old games where you made a quadrillion $$ by
exploiting some loophole in W$R that is now closed.
This new version closes a lot of those "loopholes.")
- Major new feature: Earnings projections are now
available for the coming quarter for all corporations
(but are not always accurate, as in the real world,
especially for complex companies with many
subsidiary holdings). Projections are updated 2
or 3 times each quarter, or after major corporate
transactions, disasters, and after each quarterly
earnings release.
- Bank lending practices have been curbed. Banks may
now no longer extend credit to a company (even if
you control both bank and borrower) in an amount in
excess of the greater of $10,000 million U.S. or 25%
of the bank's total loan portfolio. A loan that
comes to exceed those two limits will be frozen, and
a bank will begin calling in part of its largest
such loan, as required by government "bank examiners."
Thus, if you have plans to borrow huge sums, you
may want to change your banking relationship to
a very large bank, one that can lend you up to 25% of
its loan portfolio total, where that amount is much
more than $10 billion U.S. (or equivalent in other
currency you may have selected for W$R). Otherwise
(for large corporations), you may need to rely more
on bond market financing, instead of bank loans.
- The size (capitalization) of banks at the start of the
game has been considerably enlarged, to more closely
reflect real world market conditions.
- As requested by users, the Database Search (DB Search)
routine has been beefed up to provide detailed info
on corporate bond issues, to make it easier to do
bond research. Bond issues displayed by the search
screen now show issuer's name, date due, interest
rate (coupon rate), yield to maturity, credit rating,
the total size of each bond issue, and the amount of
each issue that is available for purchase from the
"public" bondholders (i.e., not held by players or
banks or insurance companies).
- Numerous new product liability scenarios have
been added, for companies in 16 industry groups.
- If a company seeks to merge with a company in which
you (or a company you control) owns any stock, during
your turn, you will be asked if you want to vote the
shares you control for or against the merger/takeover.
- New feature attempts to "read your mind" and anticipate
what company's stock or bonds you intend to buy, or
which company you intend to take over in a merger,
file suit against, buy assets from, or so on. The
program will "guess" the identity of the targeted
company (based on whichever company you have just
finished researching) and will insert its stock
symbol in the input area of the stock selection
dialog, so that you only have to click on "OK" if
the program has "guessed" your intentions correctly.
- When a new bank is created, it automatically tries
to buy loans from other banks with a good portion of
its injected capital. In this new release, where a
new bank acquires any "D"-rated loans, it will do so
at a discount of 30% to 80% below the face value of
the loan (depending on how "sick" the borrower is).
The seller will get the bad loan off its books, but
will incur a charge to its bad debt reserve. The new
bank that is buying the "D"-rated loans at a discount
will set up a bad debt reserve for 30% to 50% of the
newly acquired (troubled) loans.
- Added new "ethical choice" scenarios that may pop up
(if you are playing with "Cheat Mode" on) when you
try to do certain transactions, such as mergers or
restructurings.
- 2.03 -- Released: January 12, 2003 (Major release)
- File-compatible with games saved from versions 1.13
and later.
- New button command, "Tax Basis Info," has been added
to the "ENTITY INFO" submenu. Appears when the current
"active entity" is you, the player. Click on it to see
the tax basis (cost, with certain adjustments) of all
the stocks and bonds you own directly.
- The "Sell Stock" feature has been modified so that if
you (the player) are the seller, the list of your stocks
that will be displayed for you to select from when you
click on the "Sell Stock" button will show the cost
("tax basis") of each stock in your portfolio.
- The "Sell Corporate Bonds" feature (on the "BUY/SELL"
Transactions submenu) has been modified so that if a
player or a bank or insurer controlled by the player
wishes to sell corporate bonds, the list of bonds to
select from that will be displayed will now show the
cost (adjusted "tax basis") of each bond holding in
the bond portfolio of the selling player, bank or
insurance company.
- The W$R "help" files text, and the W$R strategy manual
HTML files have been updated to reflect all updates in
W$R through the date of this release.
- Stock pricing for bank stocks has been modified to
make it more difficult to drastically manipulate the
stock price of a controlled bank.
- Banks with credit ratings of BB or worse now pay more
than the LIBOR rate on interbank borrowings, up to 3.25%
above LIBOR rate for banks with worst credit ratings.
- Added feature to "Startup" function, to immediately split
the stock price to less than 125.00, when starting up a
new company with a very large capitalization.
- Rules changed for non-taxable liquidations: If the
parent company is a bank or insurance company, and the
subsidiary to be liquidated owns stock of the parent
company, it will be required to divest (sell) the parent
company stock before the liquidation can go forward.
The same rule now applies even if the parent company is
not a bank or insurance company, if the liquidating
company owns 20% or more of the parent company's stock.
- 2.02 -- Released: December 26, 2002 (Minor release)
- File-compatible with games saved from versions 1.13
and later.
- Registered version now captures name of licensed
owner, and registration number, storing it for you
for future reference, when you request updates
during the 12 months after purchase. (Click on
"Help/About" menu item to see your registration
info, any time after you have entered it.)
- "Industry Summary" and "Industry Projection" screens
have been expanded to show more information, per user
requests, and to also show, in Industry Summary and
Portfolio Listing screens, the current Buy/Sell
advice from "analysts."
- Numerous minor changes include a pop-up message
any time anything significant is announced in the
news that affects any company you control, or the
current "active entity" company.
- New disaster scenario added: government defaults
on treasury bonds, in certain dire economic
situations.
- 2.01 -- Released: December 18, 2002 (Minor release)
- File-compatible with games saved from versions 1.13
and later.
- Tax rules tightened up on liquidations, to close a
"loophole," where a holding / trading company with tax
losses could change its business by acquiring a subsidiary
(which is not also a holding / trading company) and
liquidating it, in order to enter the subsidiary company's
industry group. Now, such a change of business will cause
the parent company to lose its tax loss carryovers, due to
the "change of business."
- Added another level of Analyst's Ratings: "Strong Sell"
- Added more "advisories" to pop-up transaction submenus,
suggesting stocks or specific bonds to sell, or
recommending stocks to buy.
- Minor bug fixes.
- 2.00 -- Released: November 26, 2002 (VERY major release)
- File-compatible with games saved from versions 1.13
and 1.14 (only).
- Major overhaul of the main screen's user interface.
- Greatly sped up operation of the program, by
combining all the main elements of the program
into a single program file. Previous versions
required a second or so to load the "Transactions
Menu" program, with large amounts of data written
back and forth to disk, which slowed performance
on computers with older, slower hard disks. We've
obtained an upgraded language compiler now that
allowed us to combine the transactions segment with
the rest of W$R, to make one large .EXE file now,
with no delays on accessing or returning from
doing transactions, a major improvement.
- Added a new research feature, a diagram screen for
any selected player or company, which shows in
graphic format all the stocks owned by the player
or company, and, for companies, all of its
shareholders, with the percentage ownership of
each holding or holder. You can quickly skim
through a chain of ownership just by clicking
on any companies shown on the diagram screen.
- New popup menus are available, for General Research
functions and Entity Research (about the currently
selected active entity), as well as for various
groupings of transactions -- Trading, Management,
Financing, and Other. Each contains text displays
with useful information, such as earnings trends
for the active entity if it is a corporation, or
estimated income tax information for the player.
The General Research popup menu contains a text
box with a discussion of "Industry Outlook" trends
for the currently selected industry, as well as a
discussion of the general economic trend and
central bank monetary policy.
- Added occasional "Advisory" suggestions in the text
boxes that appear on each of the pop-up transactions
menus, such as warnings when bonds held are in default,
or when a stock holding is near bankruptcy.
- Updated currency conversion rate of Euro to 1:1
with U.S. dollar, as the Euro has risen substantially
against the dollar since W$R was introduced a year ago.
- New "ethics" scenario added for Biotech Industry.
- Added restraints on government bond purchases, to
raise/lower purchase price in the event of massive
purchases or sales. (And limit purchases to the
amount of existing government debt available.)
- Bank or insurance company that is bankrupted by
asbestos litigation is now (usually) freed of any
further asbestos liability after the bankruptcy.
- Made changes in announced GDP (economic) growth rate
less frequent, announced only once a month, usually.
- Modified company "Research Reports" by adding a
disclosure where the company's union employees
are currently on strike.
- Modified "Database Search" screen to replace the
SmallCap/MidCap/BigCap search parameter. Now,
instead of accepting the 3 size categories, you
are able to enter a minimum and a maximum size
of capitalization. For example, you can search
for only those companies with a minimum market
cap of $600 million and a maximum cap of $900
million, by entering those search parameters.
- Made major changes in the corporate "Liquidation" feature
of the program, including:
- Instead of having a parent company, as the
"active entity," select a 100%-owned subsidiary
to liquidate, now you simply click either of two
"Liquidation" buttons to begin the procedure of
liquidating the currently selected active entity.
If it can't be liquidated into a parent company
that owns all of its stock (a nontaxable
liquidation), you will be asked if you want to
do a taxable liquidation. Or, you can choose to
do a taxable liquidation, by clicking on "Taxable
Liquidation," rather than "Tax-Free Liquidation."
- Under new rules, a bank or insurance company
can now be liquidated, but only in a nontaxable
liquidation by another bank or insurance company
(in the same industry) that owns all of its stock.
- A holding company can now be liquidated, in a
nontaxable liquidation, into ANY corporation that
owns 100% of its stock (even if the parent is a
bank or insurance company). But tax loss carryovers,
if any, of the holding company will be lost on the
liquidation.
- The program now allows for a "TAXABLE" liquidation
of any corporation except a bank or insurance
company, if you control the company (even if there
is no 100% shareholder). In a "taxable" liquidation,
the industrial or holding company must sell off any
stocks or capital assets it owns, and pay off any
bonds it has issued, before the liquidation can be
completed, reducing all its assets to cash, which is
then used to pay off any bank loans or accrued income
taxes, before the cash is distributed to all its
stockholders in proportion to their ownership
percentage. Any tax loss carryovers of the company
that is liquidated will be lost. In addition, any
individual shareholders (players) will recognize a
capital gain or loss when they receive cash for their
stock, so it is a taxable event for them. (But no
gain or loss is recognized by corporate owners of
the stock of the company being liquidated, as there
is no capital gains tax on corporations in W$R.)
- A new "Updates" menu item has been added to the
"OPTIONS" menu on the main W$R screen. Simply
click on this menu item to load your browser and
go to this page on the Web to see if there is a
newer version of W$R than the one you are using,
with a link to download the latest shareware version,
or to order the latest registered version.
- 1.14 -- Released: August 24, 2002.
- (Details of this and all prior releases available on request.)
- 1.13 -- Released: July 22, 2002.
- 1.12 -- Released: July 15, 2002.
- 1.11 -- Released: July 1, 2002.
- 1.10 -- Released: June 18, 2002.
- 1.01P -- Released: May 22, 2002.
- 1.01O -- Released: April 18, 2002.
- 1.01N -- Released: March 15, 2002.
- 1.01M -- Released: February 20, 2002.
- 1.01L -- Released: February 07, 2002.
- 1.01K -- Released: January 19, 2002.
- 1.01J -- Released: January 9, 2002.
- 1.01I -- Released: January 2, 2002.
- 1.01H -- Released: December 20, 2001.
- 1.01G -- Released: December 11, 2001.
- 1.01F -- Released: December 4, 2001.
- 1.01E -- Released: November 30, 2001.
- 1.01D -- Released: Noveember 25, 2001.
- 1.01C -- Released: November 21, 2001.
- 1.01B -- Released: November 12, 2001.
- 1.01A -- Released: November 1, 2001 -- Initial Windows version
ANNOUNCING.... The electronic book, "WALL STREET RAIDER --
THE BOOK," a strategy manual in the form of HTML files,
which can be viewed directly from Wall Street Raider's
"Options" menu, is now available for purchase online,
for $15.00 (U.S.) at:
http://www.roninsoft.com/orderman.htm
(Note: You must have a web browser installed, and the
registered version of Wall Street Raider software, to
view the electronic book, which consists of HTML and
graphics image files. ALSO INCLUDED in this package
is the "Customizer" utility program, that lets you customize
W$R company names, symbols, and country where based, for
all companies in the simulation.)
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