
A few months ago, when PPX was but a wobbly infant, we tried out the idea of a one-percent commission on all trades, with the idea that this would keep the market more fair and accurate. Unfortunately, since there were only a few thousand traders at the time, the exchange came grinding to a halt, and we responded by removing the commission to encourage a fun environment with a high trade volume.
But now that PPX is more mature, with a community of over 16,000 members, we're ready to try the experiment again— in a new, carefully considered fashion. This time around, rather than charging a percentage of the trade value, PPX will charge a flat POP$0.25 per share for each trade. The commission will be instated at 3 pm EDT, tomorrow: Friday, September 28th. Our hope is that this policy will increase the accuracy of the predictions generated.
The Cliff's Notes version of this blog post: You have until 3 pm tomorrow to trade for free, so get those stocks while they're hot. —The PPX staff

Comments
If this cuts down on the amount of wave riding and adds more stability, I'm all for it.
1 out of 1 people found this comment helpfulShould make this more like the real stock market and other market games on the web as well/
1 out of 1 people found this comment helpfulI would have thought that PPX would have gone the way of some of the other online trading houses. Charging a flat fee regardless of the size of the transaction. Maybe a flat rate of $20 would be fair rather than charging $250 for a transaction.
1 out of 1 people found this comment helpfulI am totally against this kind of commission. We either need flat fees, like real brokers generally have, or none. Commissions will kill the long-run stocks, e.g. will androids beat humans at football. Why would I pay $.25 a share for a stock whose price barely changes and that won't pay out for 50 years?!
Here's hoping to the dawning of flat fee commissions,
2 out of 2 people found this comment helpfulSirius
Too true Sirius. I think this implementation is just as bad as the last one. I applaud the attempt at making it fair, but it is still too expensive. I think this is going to have the same effect as the last one. It is going to bring the game to a halt.
2 out of 2 people found this comment helpfulAndroids vs. Humans probably hasn't moved much because traders currently feel very unsure about it, other long term stocks such as stem cure have moved to POP$92.00 and therefore would have been worth investing in (with or without a commission attached).That said most of the stocks on the exchange pay out within a year or two so the anderoids stock is not reflective of the majority of stocks.
POP$250 per transaction is not a big deal. If you invest 1000 shares in a stock which moves from POP$50.00 to POP$60.00 then you still make POP$9500 of the $POP10,000 when you sell it.
The game is now different from when commissions were last implemented (traders have more money, there are more traders and the new commission of 0.25 per share is half the 1% commission on a $50 share) All these factors suggest that more transactions should be made this time around and therefore the game will not come to a halt.
On the positive side for the commission, 0.25 per share makes it easy to calculate that the break even point is a 0.50 gain (0.25 when you buy/short + 0.25 when you sell/cover), it will prevent stocks bouncing back and forward between 0.25 and 0.50,it should slightly reduce wave riding and its profitability which as a result should increase the money invested in predicting stocks.
I'm not saying things will be perfect but I think it is a step in the right direction.
1 out of 1 people found this comment helpfulNo doubt this is a good thing. I am just saying that if they wanted to be more like online brokerages, then this should model it after one. In other words, charging more for day traders (and boy do we have them) and having a flat fee. That would certainly calm this game down, and make it more fair. I would never sign on with a broker that charged $0.25 per share in a transaction.
0 out of 0 people found this comment helpfulSince most traders buy 1,000 share blocks, this amounts to a $250 fee per transaction. This will have the effect of severely penalizing trades made on the low price stocks. I predict that two things will happen: 1) Yes, accuracy will probably go up BUT 2) at the expense of the number of trades, number of hits on your site and number of active players. In fact, I will "predict the future" and state that there will be fewer than 5,000 active traders within two weeks of this change. BTW, if you purge the membership rolls based on "no trade or log-in within the last 30-days", you're probably at 10,000 or less now.
0 out of 0 people found this comment helpfulEven with a low priced stock such as PNKSLP (POP$2.75) using the 1000 share block a trader can still make a 2750-250=2500 profit if it cashes out at 0. This isn't severely penalizing and the penalty would have been less severe (in terms of % of profit)had the trader jumped onto the stock earlier before its outcome was almost certain.
0 out of 0 people found this comment helpfulAfter ruminating on this issue overnight, I have a suggested plan that will accomplish what you want (drastically curtail day trading) while still giving traders an incentive to visit your PPX site often:
1. Charge a $20 per transaction flat fee
2. Charge a $250 fee on all stock positions held for less than 23-hours.
3. Charge a $1000 fee on all stock positions held for less than 4-hours.
This would incourage traders to follow the news and make investment decisions based on recent events (example: HURICAN) while severely penalizing day trading activity. You could at least review the news, review the STOCKS page for directional movement then make changes once per day without excessive fees.
0 out of 0 people found this comment helpful