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Copyright © 2019, Michael D. Jenkins, Esq. and Ronin Software
All Rights Reserved
WALL STREET RAIDER v. 8.55 INFORMATION AND DOWNLOADS
(2019 Release)
An "...IMAGINATIVE, STIMULATING, EDUCATIONAL..." Business Simulation -- Investor's Business Daily
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WALL STREET RAIDER SIMULATION: PRODUCT INFORMATION
WHO PLAYS WALL STREET RAIDER?
Wall Street Raider (for Windows XP, Vista, Win 7/8/10) is played by (registered)
users, ranging from 9-year-olds to hedge fund managers and corporate CEOs, in
102 countries and possessions at present (that we know of), ranging from Sharjah to
Vietnam to Cyprus to Paraguay to Greenland to Namibia to Barbados to Albania to the
Sultanate of Brunei and beyond.
This Wall Street investment simulation is widely recognized as the ultimate
in sophisticated financial simulations. It's a corporate takeover and stock market
game, in which players strive to build their corporate empires by fair means or foul,
all the while trying to stay one step ahead of the SEC, IRS, Justice Department, EPA,
Congress, powerful unions, corrupt governments, and ruthless competitors who will
crush you if you fall into a weakened financial situation -- not to mention various
man-made and natural calamaties and economic disasters you will have to survive.
2019 UPDATE! Version 8.55 of Wall Street Raider is now available,
and Versions 8.00 and higher now allow you to invest in convertible bonds or have
your companies issue convertible bonds, plus introducing other new features such
as the ability to reset the default currency exchange rates and a new stock price
alert feature which will alert you when a stock reaches a price you have specified.
Mainly, however, the main focus in Versions 8.xx is on INCREASED REALISM, especially
with regard to trading derivatives (options, futures, and swaps).
Other features added in recent upgrade releases have included:
- showing, in the list of all your controlled companies, the capital
spending growth rate for each and whether or not the company is on
"autopilot"
- the option to play against MULTIPLE (up to 4) computer players
- an automatic "sweep" function you can turn on or off, which will "sweep"
any cash in a players bank account to reduce his/her loan balance
- one-year cash flow projections for players
- performance rankings of ETFs
- players or their companies can now list stocks or assets for possible sale to other
players or companies (or buy items offered by other players or companies that are "listed"
as being for sale)
- it is possible now to "look under the hood" at corporate data to see which companies have
positions in all of the various types of assets or contracts (such as interest rate swaps,
futures, options, subsidiary holdings, etc.)
- ability to put companies you control on "autopilot" (self-managed -- by
the program), when your corporate empire grows to include more companies
than you can effectively manage yourself.
- stock index futures trading
- investment management contracts for financial companies that manage ETF's
- 5-year charts for the stocks of each of the 1590 companies in the simulation,
plus charts for commodities, interest rates, GDP growth rate, the Stock Index, and
of each player's net worth
- players or companies can now invest in any of 15 ETF's (Exchange-Traded
Funds, or investment companies, each investing in a particular sector)
- interest rate swaps (derivatives -- "bets" on future interest rates)
that you negotiate have been added as another tool for hedging or speculation
- commodity futures trading was added on oil, metals and grains, plus hedging of
those commodities by companies that use or produce them; plus buying and storing
of physical commodities for all companies except banks and insurers
- a player can be granted executive stock options after becoming CEO of a company,
and CEO bonuses are now more closely correlated to company earnings performance; and
- short-selling and highly realistic put and call options trading were added.
(Some of the above features are not enabled in the free version.)
For update information and a detailed description of new features in Versions 7.8x,
click here.
NEW STOCK TRADING GAME!
Traders and speculators, take note: We have recently introduced Speculator:
The Stock Trading Simulation, a "spin-off" from Wall Street Raider,
utilizing the W$R "engine" as the trading background, but where you are not a
billionaire who can influence or manipulate stock prices, but merely a small,
middle-class investor who starts out with a mere $100,000 inheritance to invest
or speculate with. ($19.95 or, for registered users of W$R, $9.95.) For details,
CLICK HERE.
NOTE TO MAC AND iPAD USERS:
Click here for
information about running Wall Street Raider on a Mac or iPad.
WALL STREET RAIDER GAME FEATURES:
In this highly realistic simulation,
1 to 5 players (including up to 4 computer players, if you choose) compete to amass
fortunes by investing in, or taking over and managing, any of up to 1590 companies
in 70 industry groups. You start off rich, with up to $1 billion, which
is enough to take over one or more decent-sized industrial companies, or to start
up your own company in any of 70 industries, and the idea is to get richer. MUCH RICHER!
(And richer than any of the other human or computer players you will be competing with.)
Once you acquire control of a company, you and your company will use all
the tricks of the trade of real Wall Street corporate
raiders ("Wolves of Wall Street") to expand your empire and net worth, including:
- trading or investing in stocks and Exchange-Traded Funds (ETF's)
- trading or investing in corporate and government bonds
- investing in or financing your companies with "straight" or convertible bonds
- gaining voting control of other companies, in order to run them (and try to
manipulate their earnings and stock price)
- industry domination and monopolization, by increasing your company's (or companies')
market share in its industry
- increasing capital spending to take advantage of lucrative rates of return on
capital in your industry, as well as to increase or maintain market share; or decreasing
or eliminating such spending to increase cash flow, in order to diversify or pay down debt,
or when an industry becomes too competitive and return on invested capital becomes too low
- setting bank lending policies, for any banks you control, such as restricting lending
to competitors or ruthlessly calling in the loans of corporate competitors or other
players
- options trading, for speculation or to hedge stock positions
- short selling of stocks, options, and commodity or stock index futures
- speculating in or hedging with commodity futures and stock index futures
- trading in physical commodities (oil, gold, silver, wheat, corn) that you
buy and store, to wait for a better price
- speculating in ultra-high-risk interest rate swaps, by creating custom-made
derivatives contracts (that are bets on the future direction of various interest rates)
- having banks or insurance companies you control invest (speculate) in high-yield
junk bonds or risky "subprime" mortgage securities, or by buying up high-yielding but
risky corporate loans
- IPOs/startups, to raise capital or to create a new subsidiary to enter a highly profitable industry
- private placement stock offerings to raise "outside" private money or from within your corporate empire
- cash or stock tender offers for corporate takeovers, or cash tender offers for LBOs
- "greenmail" stock buybacks to get rid of hostile or unwanted minor shareholders in your companies
- stock-for-stock mergers to diversify or to gobble up competitors and increase industry dominance
- LBOs (leveraged buy-outs)
- "white knight" defenses to protect your control of a company by bringing in "neutral"
corporate shareholders
- buying up distressed debt (bonds) of companies in financial trouble
- launching antitrust lawsuits and other litigation to harass financially
vulnerable competitors, or sometimes win large judgments or settlements
- mass layoffs and restucturing of companies to increase efficiency and profitability
- spin-offs or liquidations of subsidiaries, tax-free or otherwise
- excessive salaries and lavish executive stock options, provided by a company
you control, if you are elected as its CEO, plus possible large performance
bonuses for increasing earnings
- increasing dividends of companies you own (or cutting their dividends, to conserve cash)
- firing management, in the hope that new management will be an improvement
- asset downsizing
- recapitalizations
- tax avoidance strategies to avoid income taxes and various taxes on capital
- asset-stripping liquidations
- manipulating earnings by increasing/decreasing spending on R&D or marketing,
or by using "hidden" accounting reserves as "slush funds"
- earning management fees from Exchange-Traded Funds (ETF's), for securities
brokers or insurance companies you control
- using any and all methods to get the stock price up, in a company you control,
including sometimes engaging in "unethical" (and risky) actions, and
- delegating most management decisions in your corporate empire, Warren Buffett-style,
by turning on the an "auto-pilot" feature, once you have acquired control of too many
companies to effectively micro-manage them all, while still making the major decisions
for your companies on choices like which companies they will buy or sell or merge with,
or which industries to enter or exit
... and much more, all in the quest for the Almighty Dollar.
An individual player can engage in risky (but sometimes lucrative) activities
for his or her own account, such as short selling of stocks, and players or companies
can engage in buying and shorting put and call options and commodity futures on
crude oil, gold, silver, wheat, and corn, or can gamble with massive leverage
on interest rate swaps (derivatives contracts). Although the U.S. dollar is
the default, players also are able to instantly configure the simulation for
any one of 22 other currencies, before starting a new game, starting off
with the equivalent of up to $1 billion in Euros, Pounds, Yen, Canadian or
Aussie dollars, etc. Use the default currency exchange rate or, in Version 8.xx,
set the exchange rate yourself at the start of a new game.
ETHICS? (ON WALL STREET?) No Wall Street-based game
would be complete without ethical considerations being a major factor. So,
of course, you will have ample "ethical choices" thrust upon you from
time to time, where you will have to choose between playing ethically,
or (possibly) winding up in serious legal or financial trouble if you
decide to "Go for the gold," rather than "Do the right thing." Recent versions
even include a "Cheat Menu" that lets you obtain "insider information" on
upcoming mergers or major changes in a company's fortunes (good or bad),
which you can greatly profit from. Of course, there's always a chance your
informant may turn into a "stool pigeon" and thus you could be prosecuted and
perhaps convicted of illegal "insider trading.... with harsh consequences!"
TRADING ENVIRONMENT AND PLATFORM:
All your investment research and financial wheeling and dealing occur
against the backdrop of a constantly shifting economic and political
landscape in which you and all the companies and industries in Wall
Street Raider must operate and try to cope. The main screen is your
Trading Desk, on which you can always see a nonstop "live" stock ticker
tape, a scrolling financial news tape, flickering, constantly updating
stock prices on your "streaming quotes" list of up to 15 stocks, as well as
frequently changing spot prices for each of 5 commodities and the (tradeable)
Stock Index, plus the current GDP growth rate of the economy and various
interest rates (long- and short-term government bond yields and the Prime
Rate). One section of the Trading Desk also shows your (condensed) personal
financial balance sheet, so you can see at a glance your personal net worth
and available bank line of credit (if any) fluctuating second by second.
DECISION-MAKING:
Speedy decision-making is of the essence, and sweaty palms are a certainty,
as you try to cope with and anticipate changing market conditions and keep
your companies' earnings and stock prices on an upward track -- or at least
keep yourself out of the humiliation of bankruptcy and expulsion from the
game. You also have to deal with cash flow issues, such as by having your
companies raise capital by stock or bond issuances when the time is right,
and will need to try to keep powerful competitors from squeezing your
company's profitability or seizing control of your company -- unless
the price is right, of course!
COMPETITION:
Opposing players, including the Computer players, can be ruthless,
especially if you let yourself or your main companies get in a vulnerable
financial condition, where frivolous, harassing lawsuits or freezing your
line of credit or calling in your loans can put your companies (or you)
out of business or at least be financially crippled. In this simulation,
as on Wall Street, "It's all about survival, baby," and only the strongest
and smartest survive!
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DOWNLOAD FREE TRIAL VERSION OR PLACE ORDER:
We believe in "try-before-you-buy," so to download a
free copy of the "shareware" (evaluation) version of Wall Street Raider (for
Windows XP/Vista/7/8/10), click here.
Or go to our Downloads page
to download a shareware copy of Wall Street Raider from any of
dozens of major shareware download sites.
To order the registered version of Wall
Street Raider, or the Windows Version "Add-on Package," select one
of the ordering links below, for the Windows versions or the
"antique" MS-DOS version:
SUGGESTION: WHEN ORDERING, YOU DO NOT NEED THE 2-YEAR EXTENDED DOWNLOAD SERVICE OFFERED
BY SWREG OR OTHER VENDORS (FOR AN EXTRA FEE). WE WILL REPLACE YOUR COPY OF WALL STREET RAIDER
(FREE, AT ANY TIME) IF YOU LOSE IT FOR ANY REASON (DISK CRASH, NEW COMPUTER, ETC.). JUST E-MAIL
mdjenk AT aol (DOT com) WITH YOUR NAME OR REGISTRATION NUMBER TO REQUEST A REPLACEMENT COPY.
To order, use one of the following links:
- $21.95 for the Windows
registered version of W$R, plus the "Customizer Utility" program. The "Customizer" allows you to
permanently change the company names or stock symbols for any of the stocks in the simulation.
- $29.95 for the Windows version,
"full package deal" -- Consisting of the Wall Street Raider game software,
which includes the "Customizer Utility" program and the (electronic) strategy manual,
"Wall Street Raider -- The Book" (NOTE: THERE IS NO PRINT VERSION OF THE MANUAL.)
- $15.00 for the Add-on
Package Only, which includes the new (electronic, not printed) strategy manual, entitled
"Wall Street Raider -- The Book" (an electronic book about W$R, in HTML format, now
also with a Word (.DOC) file version, for easier printing), plus the Customizer Utility
program, that works with the W$R Windows version software. (This add-on package is for those
users who already have the registered version of the W$R software.)
- $250.00 for a
site license and downloadable copy of the "Full Package" version, which includes a site
license to distribute up to 50 copies of W$R to students or for other end users. Due to the
realism of the simulation, Universities from the University of Mexico in Mexico City to
George Brown University in Toronto have found Wall Street Raider to be a useful tool to
make students in their business and finance courses more conversant with real world corporate
finance. (For home schoolers or other small groups, contact us at the email address at the
bottom of this page for possible reduced price for a site license.)
- or, for $19.95, try our spin-off from Wall Street Raider -- our stock trading game called "Speculator,"
in which you start each game as a middle-class investor with only $100,000 (not a billion), and can
invest in stocks, bonds, convertible bonds, options, and futures, but cannot take over and manage
companies. (Sorry, no way to run a company and manipulate its stock price in this challenging simulation!)
CLICK HERE
to order Speculator.

REGISTRATION BENEFITS INCLUDE REDUCED PRICE FOR ANY FUTURE UPGRADES
(for the "Full Package" that will include the latest version of the
(electronic) W$R strategy manual and the "Customizer Utility" program).
When you order a Windows version of Wall Street Raider, your purchase also includes
the right to order future updates/upgrades at a greatly reduced price, currently
$12.95, instead of the regular price of $29.95.
UPDATES/UPGRADES AND SUPPORT:
See the updates page to see what improvements have
been added since the version you currently have, so you can decide if or when to
purchase upgrades/updates. To contact Ronin Software for CUSTOMER SUPPORT,
click here
NOTE: When purchasing through SWREG's secure server online
e-tailing site, you will not instantly download the program, but will
automatically be sent an e-mail by SWREG, which will notify you that your
order has been accepted and give you the URL where you can download
the registered version of the program during a specified number of days.
If you do not receive your registration/download information, please
contact SWREG. Ronin Software
does not process the credit cards. (And be sure to check your "SPAM"
in-box, if you do not immediately receive an e-mail link from SWREG --
that's where the "missing" e-mail will be, 99% of the time.)
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REVIEWS, AWARDS, USER COMMENTS:

Take a look at our comments page, to see what
users say about Wall Street Raider.
Or, view a series of YouTube
STRATEGY VIDEOS one game reviewer created, showing
you what playing a game of Wall Street Raider is like, plus his commentary. These
are the first of a series of videos this chap (an obvious W$R junkie and expert)
is creating, all of which are accessible on YouTube. The videos will give you an
idea of some of the things you can do in Wall Street Raider (based on Version
7.60 and, in a new series, on Versions 7.8x, with 8.0 to come) and strategies for
generating trillions (or more) in profits, trading stocks, options, futures and
dealing in interest rate swaps. He has also begun posting a series of
TUTORIAL VIDEOS on
YouTube.
Wall Street Raider has been published and under continuous development
since 1986, and it has received a number of very favorable reviews
over the years from major Web sites, such as ZDNET, Download.com and PCWorld,
as well as highly favorable reviews in print publications, including the Wall
Street Journal, Byte Magazine, PC World, and, on June 22, 2000, we rated a
two-column, very favorable front-page article in Investor's Business Daily,
which called W$R an "...imaginative, stimulating..." business simulation.
(That was a review of the old DOS version -- we came out with the much more
sophisticated Windows version a year later.)
Previously, respected computer columnist Jerry Pournelle had written of W$R,
that "You can really learn something about stocks, mergers, takeovers
and the general world of finance, and have a whacking good time in
the bargain."
Or read this detailed review of W$R on the
Daily Speculations web
site of legendary hedge fund manager Victor Niederhoffer.
(In one of his books, George Soros wrote that Niederhoffer
was the only one of his managers who ever retired voluntarily from trading for him while
still ahead.) Niederhoffer's hedge fund was ranked #1 in the world, earning 35% a year
from inception to 1996 but, alas, he was nearly wiped out in 1997 by excessive
speculations in Thailand. Since then, he says he has been "...crawling back up the stairs,
not entirely without success," after mortgaging his house and selling off his collection
of antiques in 1998. As in Wall Street Raider, the real financial world is a jungle, in
which one can go from riches to rags in a heartbeat....
As another reviewer, at the
3D2F.COM
software directory, notes, "Wall Street Raider is an award-winning financial
simulator that critics have praised as being 'imaginative, stimulating and educational.'
In this game, you will start your own career and as a market player, investor, broker,
owner of your own business - no matter which role you choose, you will have to elbow
your way through a horde of competitors to reach the pinnacle of success."
GIVE US YOUR OPINION: Do you love W$R? Hate it when
you go bankrupt all the time? To register your opinion, by giving us a
thumbs up, or thumbs down, go to the
Download.com
ratings page, where 34 of 37 users gave us a 5-star rating....
SAMPLE SCREEN SHOTS
Click here to see a sample screen shot of Wall Street Raider (Windows version).
Or here, to view a sample Entity Research Menu and industry outlook commentary.
Or here, to view a sample General Research Menu and economy & markets commentary.
Click here for a sampling of News Headlines generated by events in a typical game.
W$R FORUM! Wall Street Raider now also has a "blog" fan site (not sponsored
by us) -- see the link here....
Check it out, if you want to brag to or otherwise communicate with other Wall
Street Raider addicts...!
To download a free copy of the shareware (evaluation)
version of Wall Street Raider go to our Downloads page
to download from any of many shareware sites that host the program.
Or download W$R from this site:
IT Shareware - A shareware
and freeware collection with reviews and free downloads. Categories include games, Internet & network utilities, screensavers,
audio & video, graphics, and business applications.

Ronin Software is a Software Industry Professionals Member.
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NOTE FROM THE PUBLISHER TO MAC AND iPAD USERS:
RUNNING W$R, A WINDOWS PROGRAM, ON A MAC OR iPAD: Wall Street Raider is a Windows program.
However, there are now a number of applications players have used to run Windows programs on their Macs,
such as the combination of Wine/WineBottler (which is free), or commercial programs like Parallels
Desktop or Crossover. Because newer Macs use Intel processors, they can run Windows and
Windows applications as quickly as PCs. Most such apps require you to (buy and) install Windows
on your Mac, although Wine/Winebottler and the commercial program CrossOver do not. We do not
recommend any specific Windows virtualization or dual boot programs, but we have heard from
users of Crossover that it works flawlessly with Wall Street Raider, though you may not
want to buy it, just to run W$R. Parallels Desktop also works perfectly with W$R, which is not
surprising, since you need to buy a Windows license and install Windows to use Parallels.
Some users of WineBottler have reported that they were unable to run W$R or Speculator under
it on their Macs (for reasons unknown).
Also, there is now a subscription service call Parallels Access that offers an
iPad app that will allow you to run Windows programs on an iPad, or even Microsoft Office
programs.
We cannot guarantee that Wall Street Raider will be stable on these
virtualizers, so we STRONGLY suggest that, before you buy a registered copy of Wall
Street Raider to run on your Mac or iPad, you download and play the shareware (free)
version of W$R for a while with the Windows virtualizer app you have installed, if
you have one. If the shareware version works OK on your Mac or iPad, the registered
version of W$R should also, since the shareware version simply limits access to some
of the game's internal logic features and the length of games, and is a somewhat
smaller file, since many of the features of the registered version (like options
trading) are simply not compiled in the shareware version. You may also want to do
a Google search for "Run Windows programs on a Mac," to see what else may be
available, currently.
IPAD APP: Many fans of W$R have asked if there is an iPad "app" being
developed. There was, but there is NOT at present. In 2011, I licensed my W$R source code
to a company that tried to develop a simplified iPad version of W$R, but they eventually
ran out of development money after two years, before they could get it to work properly,
as W$R is an extremely complex program, in terms of the logic involved, which requires
an understanding of finance, economics, accounting, and taxes, etc., to understand how
it SHOULD work. Programmers who also have professional backgrounds as tax lawyer, CPA,
successful investor and options trader, million-selling author, and consulting economist
are not easy to find. I have all that background, which enabled me to develop W$R, using
the PowerBASIC compiler, an easy way to write Windows programs, and have created a
pretty nifty little program after plugging away at it and tweaking it for over 30 years.
However, I am not a software engineer, and I lack the tech skills to convert W$R to a
Mac or iPad app or do other complex things like create an online multiplayer version.
Development of an iPad version resumed in May, 2014, and if it had succeeded this time,
an app was to have been available some time in late 2014. However, the developers apparently
ran out of funding again, and still could not get 2+2 to (consistently) equal 4 in their
iPad version, so the latest effort was also abandoned. We are still open to partnering
with a larger, well-funded software company that might be interested in developing an iPad
or iPhone version, but are not optimistic. We have no desire to spends hundreds more hours
of consulting time with a software developer that is unable to create an iOS version that
actually works, however. (Or at least, not without a sizable up-front advance royalty payment!)
As a self-taught programmer with (very) limited tech skills, I feel I have just
about reached the limits of what I can do to develop Wall Street Raider, so at
this point my main goal is to do a licensing agreement with a large software firm
that has the ability to take W$R to the next level, if possible and feasible.
The quest continues....
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