The Investing Game by Dacris Software Version 1.0 ------------------ 0. Disclaimer -- No part of this software is intended as investment advice. This software is intended for entertainment purposes only. Grab a coffee & enjoy. 1. Introduction -- You are an aspiring investor. Starting at the young age of 19 as a student, you embark on a journey that could make you into the next billionaire. Do you have what it takes to weather the volatility in the market and find the true gems out there before you get too old? The aim of the game is to get as rich as possible, as quickly as possible, by making good investments. Watch out, though, because your debts could catch up to you and take you into the negative. If you wish, you can limit yourself to only specific types of investments (e.g. no cryptos) to make the game harder. You are allowed to borrow up to 3x your gross income. All debts carry 4% interest. Your savings grow by 2% every year, but inflation is running a little hot at 2.5%/yr. And of course you pay about 32% in taxes on your income. Your salary grows with inflation, but there may be periods of unemployment. All dividends and income from your investments are added to the value of the investment over time. Tip: Be sure to carry enough savings into your retirement years. You will be spending more than you earn from pension. You are allowed to complete any number of transactions during each year. You may buy/sell assets, or pay down debts from your savings account. When you're ready to move forward in the game, press Next Year. 2. Volatility Simulation -- We employ a formula to simulate market volatility (ups & downs), so watch out for assets going down in value while you hold them. Our formula ensures a chance of 1 in 20 to 1 in 10 of seeing significant downward movement (over 50% down) in price. So most of the time, you'll be gradually going up. It is those rare down years you should be aware of and limit your risk. The volatility is entirely random, so you cannot predict any of the price action. That's what makes the game so fun. All assets are uncorrelated, so their prices move independently of each other. Diversification is your best bet. Cryptos are the most volatile, followed by hot stocks, followed by precious metals, and finally housing is the least volatile. All rates of return are based on historical and extrapolated future returns averaged out over a 25+ year period. All volatility boundaries are taken from real historical price data. 3. Cheating -- Do not read this section unless you intend to cheat a little. If you want to figure out how to do well in this game and you are a programmer, you could cheat by looking at the source code. All asset classes are described including their average rate of return ("r") and volatility ("v") parameters. 4. Development Effort -- 6 cups of coffee and 2 beers were consumed developing and testing this game. Research was done over the course of one month, on evenings & weekends, looking at historical price data for each asset class. Thank you for your support of this effort. Suggestions may be emailed to dantohatan96@gmail.com "With my mind on my money and my money on my mind." - Bran Van 3000 5. Limitations and Future Improvements (TO-DOs) -- - Introduce correlated assets (e.g. Dow) or correlated stocks from the same sector, creating additional risk - Maybe add bonds? - Add capital gains taxes, dividend taxes, and transaction fees - Vary the rate of inflation (but still average out to 2.5%) - Show % change in asset values over last year