WELCOME TO MASTER THE MARKET! This is a fast moving stock market game for 1 to 10 players that closely simulates real market conditions. Players buy and sell from among a selection of 10 blue chip stocks to see who can accumulate the most wealth. The game uses some exciting graphics, including stock price bar charts and a simulation of the NYSE ticker tape. News events, randomly selected, have an effect on the day's market. Because the behavior of each of the ten stocks is randomly and independently generated, no two game sessions will ever be the same. The program also maintains each player's portfolio. At the end of a "trading day", each player's portfolio is appraised for net worth, and his/her performance as an investment manager is ranked with the other players. Master the Market can be played on two levels of sophistication: 1. A regular cash purchase game, 2. A more sophisticated level that allows players to buy stock on margin and sell stock short. Master the Market could be considered an educational program for novice investors who are learning how to "play the market". The simulation is realistic enough to teach some important lessons before real money is commited to the real stock market. COMPUTER REQUIREMENTS IBM PC and compatibles: Master the Market was designed to run on the IBM PC. To start the program from the operating system, type MARKET and hit . Tandy 2000: Master the Market also runs on the Tandy 2000. To start the program from the operating system, type MARKET and hit . Answer the "sound disable" question with a YES during the beginning of the program. TI Professional Computer: Master the Market also runs on the TI PC. You must be running MS-DOS 2.1 or higher. Type EMULATE (from the operating system) and hit , then type MARKET and hit to start the game. As with the Tandy 2000, you must answer the "sound disable" question with a YES. ALL: Master the Market requires 128K of memory and 1 disk drive. It works on both monochrome and graphics type display monitors. The program comes without an instruction manual, because all that the players need to know is contained in the first four display screens after starting the program. Like "checkers", the rules are simple and easy to learn, but the strategies are numerous and challenging. Note: It would be a good idea to make a copy of your Master the Market diskette, especially onto a "system" diskette. (Master the Market may have been given to you on a "non-system" diskette.) Label a blank diskette, format it using the FORMAT/S command, and use COPY *.* to move all the Master the Market files onto this new diskette. Store the original in a safe place and use your new "working copy". BASIC TERMS A few basic stock market terms will now be explained: LONG: After you buy shares of a stock, you are said to be holding a long position in the stock until you sell it. SHORT: Stocks can be sold short in anticipation of falling prices. Short selling is the antithesis of the normal process: Normally you buy shares, hold them for a period of time, then sell them (hopefully at a higher price). With short selling you sell (borrowed shares) first, hold your short position for a period of time, then buy back the shares (hopefully at a lower price). "Cover" is the term used to describe the buying back of short shares. Short selling can be a means of playing "the downside" of the market for gains, rather than just sitting it out with cash. Short selling can also be a means of hedging (reducing the risk) of a mostly long portfolio. This would be accomplished by shorting the shares of one or more companies that look like their shares may fall, at the same time that you hold long positions in some of the stronger looking stocks. BUYING ON MARGIN: Trading on margin is, by its very nature, more speculative than trading on cash. Buying securities on margin simply means that your broker loans you part of the purchase price on your security transactions. The amount of this loan or "margin" is based on a percentage of the asset value of your margin account. Margin requirement rules are governed by the Federal Reserve Board and the various exchanges. Brokerage houses may add their own res- trictions. Master the Market uses the following typical requirements: Initial Requirements: The maximum loan value in a margin accunt is 50% of the account asset value (equity). For example, if you have $5,000 equity in your account (net of security values and cash balance), you may open as much as $10,000 worth of stock positions, long or short. (The $5,000 balance is effectively borrowed from your broker.) Maintenance Requirements: In addition to initial margin requirements, your account is subject to margin maintenance requirements. This means that if your equity falls below a certain amount due to a change in the market value of the securities in your margin account, you will be required to close some positions in order to reduce your market exposure. The margin maintenance level is 30% of the market value of the security positions in your account. If your equity falls below the 30% maintenance requirement, you will be required to sell some long positions and/or cover some short positions in order to raise your equity percentage above 35%. SHORTING AGAINST THE BOX: This refers to the practice of selling short shares of a stock in which you already have a long position. Master the Market does not allow shorting against the box, since it does not allow simultaneous long and short positions in the same stock in any player's portfolio. A FEW FINAL WORDS ABOUT MASTER THE MARKET The key to success in Master the Market is going with the trends. You will want to go LONG on stocks moving up and/or go SHORT on stocks moving down. Trends are not always easy to identify, however. It is easy to be "faked out". The challenge is to differentiate between the real moves and the fake ones. Cut your losses quickly when it becomes apparent that an invest- ment has gone sour. Don't ride it into the pits. Salvage your cash for another opportunity. When reading the charts, don't be fooled into thinking that just because a stock has reached the bottom of its chart that the stock has gone as low as it can go. It can go still lower! Master the Market can (and will) simply re-scale the vertical axis. The same is true on the upside. Finally, since a commission is charged on all buy and sell orders, you are cautioned against "over-trading". Plan to hold a position for at least a few days when you open it. Buying and selling every day doesn't usually pay off. Good luck! INSTRUCTIONS FOR DUPLICATING "MASTER THE MARKET" To copy Master the Market, you may either use the DISKCOPY command or the COPY *.* command. If you use the COPY *.* command the destina- tion disk must first be formatted. Formatting with the /S option, to make it a "system" disk, is recommended. ("System" disks are less hastle for everyday use, because you can start the computer with them, and they don't cause the computer to say "Insert DOS disk in drive A and strike any key when ready" every time you exit a program.) However, if you are making a copy to give someone else, the passing of a DOS disk may violate DOS copyrights unless the recepient already owns the specific DOS version you are giving him/her. If in doubt, give Master the Market on a "non-system" disk. Note: Be sure to transfer all four Master the Market files when making a copy, whether for yourself or for someone else. These files are named: MARKET.EXE NEWS.MGS README.EXE INST.TXT * * * END OF INSTRUCTIONS * * *