Corporate Cash Investments
Today we're launching new functionality to the Corporation code. Corps can now accept cash for two different purposes. The first is a straight-forward cash donation which the Corp founder or admin can use as they see fit. The second is the ability of a Corporation's members to invest cash in the Corp. The way this works is a bit complex, so let me explain it in detail.
Corporations are now transitioning to a sort of virtual mutual fund collective. Members invest cash in the Corp and, once daily, interest is calculated based on a couple of factors. The first factor is whether a member has selected the Corporation as her/his Primary Corporation. Selection can be made on your User -> Preferences page (the same place you can change your user name, email, password, etc). A player can receive interest from a Corporation ONLY if that Corp is selected as her/his primary. Investments in other Corps will not receive interest. This is done to prevent a serious exploitable situation.
Second, the share holdings (in cash value) are summed up for all members of the Corp who have selected that Corp as Primary (and only those members). Share value is simply shares x price for each blog held by the qualifying members at the time the script is run. This total share value determines the interest rate that will be used to figure member investments in each Corp. This value varies wildly from Corp to Corp, as does the applied interest rate.
Premium Members receive three times the interest rate of non-premium members. The minimum daily interest applied is 0.01%, with a maximum of 0.5%. Each B$10,000,000,000 in share value held by members is 0.1% of interest paid daily (for premium members). This may sound like very little, but compounded over time, it can be a nice return on cash that would have otherwise just sat inactive in your player account. The interest cash amount is figured by taking each member's invested balance and multiplying it by the interest rate for that Corp.
Players have two options for how interest payments are handled: Reinvestment, or direct payout. Reinvestment adds the interest to the invested balance, allowing the amount to be compounded (meaning that the interest payment adds to the principal and starts earning interest itself immediately). Corporately held cash also benefits in the same way, with interest payments being reinvested automatically. Direct payout will deposit each day's interest payments in your player cash balance. Players can withdraw any or all invested balance from the corps.php page on their row in the member's table.
Now, to prevent a group of players snagging all the big blogs just before the interest script runs, a random factor has been thrown in. The script will run once and only once every day. But, the exact time is unknown, and could take place at any time of day. It might run at 11pm one night and then run again at 12am an hour later on the next day. This keeps players on their toes and (hopefully) encourages some team play to hold high value blogs over longer periods.
Data presented on corps.php pages and on corpmain will (unfortunately) be cached data from the last time the script ran. The summation of share values is quite a long-running part of the script, so trying to present that data live would kill the page loads. Instead, the data is stored and recalled only as one query to the db on page load. Any changes since the script last ran will not be reflected in cash balances or corporate assets. However, member investments are displayed live on corps.php pages (this adds nothing to page load).
I'm planning out a very light blog share search to help players find blogs out of the top 100 with good price / PE combos. I'm still working on finding the right queries to keep this very light on the db, but hopefully, I can get this together soon.
Also, a small addition will be made to blogs.php pages. A row in the main data table for the blog will show the Corporation flags of the top share holders in the blog (as determined by the share holders' selections for primary Corp). You can see an example here. I'd encourage any Corps without a flag to add one. This change may take place at any time, so look for the new row on blogs.php pages.
Finally, no, this is not the final change that will be made to Corporations. I expect over time they will gain tremendous and powerful functionality, but what that might look like, no one yet knows. I'm hoping this is just one step toward improving Corporations, team play, and to a small extent, share play. More will certainly come. If you are not already a member, consider joining Task Force Corps to get B$ msg updates when I'm working on Corp code. TFC members have known about this new investment functionality for several weeks now, and a few have helped Beta test it. Suggestions are always welcome. Please let me know ASAP of any bugs or issues.
Comments
Pretty cool.
One question though.
Does invested cash count towards your net worth?
thanks
Posted by: R. U. Serious | September 22, 2006 03:32 PM
Found my answer. I'm glad it counts, and this is a great feature.
Posted by: R. U. Serious | September 22, 2006 03:57 PM
Very nice but I can't figure out how I designate a corporation as my primary corporation.
Posted by: Linn Skinner | September 22, 2006 04:40 PM
Linn-- go to your [Prefs] tab on user profile (or [Your Preferences] from the right-side Members Area menu). You will have a dropdown menu with all your Corp memberships. Select the one you want, and click the Update button at the bottom of the table.
Posted by: Island Dave | September 22, 2006 05:23 PM
You say, "member investments are displayed live on corps.php pages", but it looks like only cash donations are showing live. I first donated $1,000,000 (which showed in Corporate Cash Assets), then invested $1,000,000 (which still hasn't shown up in Corporate Cash Assets).
This is a great idea for corporations!
Posted by: Brian | September 22, 2006 05:33 PM
Seems to be a problem with making investments. Form submission returns me to the home page, the money is still in my account and not in the corporation.
Posted by: Khyri | September 22, 2006 08:46 PM
Found the problem. On http://blogshares.com/corps.php?corpid=62&action=invest, the FORM tag has action="", when I suspect it needs action="corps.php"
Posted by: Khyri | September 22, 2006 08:49 PM
Veddy interestink.
Posted by: Tuwa | September 22, 2006 09:04 PM
If I donate cash to the corporation, who gets to spend it? The founder?
Also, where do I set the option about whether interest is cashed out or reinvested? ... I'm probably missing something obvious but I can't find it.
Posted by: Tuwa | September 23, 2006 07:03 AM
khyri: I'm not sure what would cause that. The form is fine everywhere that I can check, and (so far) no one has said they are having the same problem. action= is set properly everywhere I can test. Investment is working fine for everyone else afaik :-/
Posted by: Island Dave | September 23, 2006 07:05 AM
tuwa: Donated cash, as explained in the post, "is a straight-forward cash donation which the Corp founder or admin can use as they see fit."
You set your reinvestment choice when you make an Investment (seperate from a donation). If you want to change your choice, you will need to invest again (it can be as little as 1 penny).
Posted by: Island Dave | September 23, 2006 07:07 AM
Brian: Most likely, the first amount was done before the daily update script ran yesterday, and the second occurred after. It will update with new data on today's run.
The 'live' part that I mentioned is your personal holdings as investment, which you can see in the members table next to your user name. That is a live total.
Posted by: Island Dave | September 23, 2006 07:30 AM
Thanks, ID.
Posted by: tuwa | September 23, 2006 09:45 AM
Good beginning of functionality of the corporations.:)
I dealt badly or, in fact, only I can invest(invert) with profit in a corporation? My principal one.
Posted by: Rene Franco | September 23, 2006 02:49 PM
Good beginning of functionality of the corporations.:)
I dealt badly or, in fact, only I can invest(invert) with profit in a corporation? My principal one.
Posted by: Rene Franco | September 23, 2006 02:53 PM
khyri: sarabear had the same issue, and she helped me find what was wrong. It should be fixed now, sorry for the issues!
Posted by: Island Dave | September 23, 2006 04:54 PM
Rene: Your Primary Corporation is the only Corp that will pay Interest on your Invested cash.
You can invest money in other Corporations where you are a member, but that investment will not profit.
Posted by: Island Dave | September 23, 2006 05:13 PM
--""Rene: Your Primary Corporation is the only Corp that will pay Interest on your Invested cash.
You can invest money in other Corporations where you are a member, but that investment will not profit.""--
I suppose that that is single storm, because he/she doesn't make sense invest in something that doesn't produce yields.
Maybe, a punished yield, as that of the nopremium, for the investments in corporations that are not the main one...
Greetings
Posted by: Rene Franco | September 24, 2006 01:01 PM
change read
| storm | for "almost time"
Posted by: Rene Franco | September 24, 2006 01:04 PM
Thanks for answering my first question Island Dave! I have another one for you.
Premium members receive three times the interest rate of non-premium members, right? Does this mean that non-premium members get one third of 0.01%? Or that premium members get three times 0.01%?
Thanks!
Posted by: Brian | September 25, 2006 05:00 PM
Brian: In that case, everyone would get the 0.01%. It is the lowest available to anyone regardless of premium status. If the corp you are in got a 0.03% interest rate figured for it, Premium Members would get that rate, and non-premium member would get 0.01%. Sorry that wasn't stated clearer.
Posted by: Island Dave | September 26, 2006 11:26 AM
Thanks again, Dave! That clears it up for me.
Posted by: Brian | September 26, 2006 07:15 PM
Great stuff! I can't wait to try it out.
Posted by: Ben Uy | September 27, 2006 01:30 PM
Aliens Co. (corpid=149)
Strangers in the blogsphere 25 Rene Franco B$341,700,000,000.10
B$590,627,811,267.61
B$65,153,206,026.10
0.5000% 11:29 21 Apr 2006
One only comment: is this correct:B$590,627,811,267.61 only fault 100 trillions
Posted by: Rene Franco | October 6, 2006 01:40 AM
The figures for my corp don't seem to be updating.
http://blogshares.com/corps.php?corpid=228
Total Member Invested Cash Assets should be $0 (the Members table shows no investment by any member) and Total Share Value Held By Members should be higher.
Posted by: Brian | October 9, 2006 03:05 AM
I founded NSI Corp and invested about 62 B.
To my dismay, I couldn't see my investments and/or withdrawable amount available. I setup my corporation as my main/primary corporation.
I was wondering what's wrong?
AS OF 19:54 21 Oct 2006 Game time:
Corporate Cash Assets B$5,266,596,470,931.55
Total Share Value Held By Members* B$7,509,437,287.67
Total Member Invested Cash Assets* B$4,305,540,546,484.88
Please enlightened me.
Thank you.
Posted by: Laila* | October 21, 2006 08:09 PM
You used the "Donate Cash" link when you put in the B$62B. The money was deposited into the corporation's cash account, which you can only withdraw from as the owner/corporation admin.
If you want to invest cash in the corporation, you need to use the "Invest!" link which is a little further down.
Posted by: MrP | October 21, 2006 10:47 PM
I cant figure out how the things work....
Posted by: Ben | October 24, 2006 07:35 AM
I had the same lack of apparent deposit (i.e. the money seemed to be in two places at once) but it caught up in a couple of reloads.
TK
Posted by: pecunium | November 2, 2006 03:15 PM