Buying Stock to Increase Income (Wealth)

[protista123]

Is it best to buy stock in the leader (top AI opponent) showing steadily increasing growth?
Or is it preferable to buy stock in an opposing AI company whose shares are very cheap, hoping their value will increase appreciably over time?
How do you handle stocks with regard to increasing your income and wealth?
Any suggestions greatly appreciated!
Thanks in advance!

[corpowat]

buying stock
buy low sell high. thats the rule, the cheaper company you buy him out over period of the game then take over. the expensive one buy some then when hes gone up in value sell half of his stock you own then his shares should drop.then buy more.rince recycle etc.

[protista123]

Thanks for the great tips! Will try to employ your strategies!

[gardlt]

As a general rule, the returns of rail in this game will far outweigh that of investment/stock.

That said, setting up rail and train lines takes time, especially on Trainiac, no-pause, setting. At a certain point in my games I don't have enough time to spend my money on new infrastructure, pretty quickly really for scenarios etc. where Trainiac, expensive stations, is not available. Such extra cash is usually what I will park in the stock market, with the long-term goal to take them out.


One important thing about the game is that the pricing on industries is quite variable. If you see an AI price wildly fluctating this is probably due to him owning industries either directly or his partial ownership via shares of your or other's companies that have industries. In that case you can make some money off buy/sell transactions. However, be warned that the buy price is higher than the sell price, so you don't receive 100% of the difference.

When you don't place an industry in a newly opened city slot, the AI might. These builds are a major part of them getting quite big. If you are diligent in filling these yourself, the AI will stay much smaller in terms of value.

A potential indicator of an undervalued AI, that might grow faster soon, is the number of trains. If the second or third ranked AI has upped their train count recently, there's potential that his value will grow faster than average.

[Dray Prescot]

One way tyo get the AI companies to tie up their cash, particularly at the start of game, is to bid (start an auction) on industries in their own cities, and let them win the auction. This can help keep them from bidding up the price for industries in your cities that you DO want to buy as cheaply as possible. Particularly on cities that you plan on replacing with a different industry in the future when that industry building becomes available to you to build (i.e. there is a city somewhere on the map that demands the manufactured good being produced by that new industry). If you wait that industry might get upgraded by the private investors which makes it even more expensive to buy in the future when you want to replace it with a different industry.