February
V2 is made available
approximately the middle of the month. The initial V2 rollout
is spotty at best with access being extremely limited. Volatility
is noted to be significantly increased and the penny stock becomes
an endangered species.
V2 also bring short
selling which does allow traders to profit from over priced stocks
but more impact is felt from the ability to short sell downward
adjusting bonds. Further changes include a 50K limit of stocks
regardless of phase and the ending of bond interest.
V2 remains buggy with
at least one bug remaining unfixed for quite awhile. The '121'
bug limits traders to only view the first 121 stocks in their portfolios.
HSJ Fund delists after
much hard work from Drake.
HSX Today starts on
the 20th. Initally a one man operation by Joseph, the site
continues to grow with later additions of Barkeep and Meteo to the
staff.
JAWBK (Jawbreaker) and
OFFIC (Office Space) become the first stocks to memorably adjust
notably downward that investors profit off via short selling.
The Hollywood Hostel
debuts on the 22nd. Headed up by Banzai, the Hostel proves
to be another fine addition to the fansites and soon gains both
an audience and an increased staff.
Blueduck of HSBR blazes
new ground and posts the first HSX portfolio auction on eBay.
There is an immediate flurry of interest in the offering and bidding
soon takes the price over $1000.00. Unfortunately, the winning
bid turns about to be false bid. This does not deter others
from listing portfolios and a least one other auction is completed
albeit at a much more reasonable price.
RELATED LINKS
March
SMGEL becomes the first
bond to be widely held as a Short for downward adjustment as her
fan driven inflated price is dropped several thousand points after
the 4.12M delist of SMPLY.
The Trades takes the
Oscar contest idea to an unheard of level in the HSX community by
offering prizes. Of particular note (at least to the timeline
author) is a script for Heathers containing the original ending
being among the prizes offered.
HSX makes a relatively
major media splash as they host a Oscar Post Party. Most notably
(at least to this trader) E! uses the party as the anchor point
of their post-Oscar coverage. There are postings that not
everything went as well as hoped as it seems overbooking led to
ticketholders being left outside the House of Blues venue.
The first HSX Royal
Rumble is published at the Trades with Big Daddy being the eventual
champion. The wrestling tradition will be continued at the
Hostel.
Redbird assumes control
of the GEKKO bond fund after Gekko himself retires from the game.
inargargunzargun runs
texx's masterful summation of what should be the basic rules of
the TT.
On a sad note, the TicketMaster
site is closed up as Tex decides to limit his time spent dealing
with HSX.. The HSX community loses a wonderful asset as TicketMaster
provided all date information in a single table as it covered release
and delist information. Tex's contribution will be sorely
missed.
The Prophets are also
mysteriously shut down. Their presence will be missed in the
forthcoming days even to the extent of a Prophets Liberation Organization
making an appearance.
Lurker decides that
he's mad as hell and he's not going to take it any more and very
publically leaves the game. HSX's continued policy to ignore
the problems of the game as pointed out repeatedly by the players
is brought to the forefront by Lurker's actions.
On a mixed bag note,
Mr. Mike forces the hand of HSX management and the ability to post
pictures on the TT is removed. Good in that it shows HSX is
willing to take action, sad in that it would have to come such blanket
action.
RELATED LINKS:
April
The month starts with
a flurry as the following three events all happen on April 1st.
- HSJ is started.
- HSXHell opens.
Kind of the ultimate, if you don't like it, do it yourself site.
Reception is quite good as the site proves to be a wonderful place
to bitch about the game, players, and even bitch about players
bitching about playing the game. Becomes a favorite of Max
Broker
- HSX demonstrates
a sense of humor by having all TT posts showing up as being by
Frito Lewis for a short time that afternoon.
MaxD fund delists.
The final stretch accomplished by Linda Hudson.
HSX finally fixes the
121 bug. Large portfolio owners are now confronted with the
problem that the code heavy V2 portfolios are too large to load
for some machines.
ICSS apparently becomes
defunct.
Hollywood Hostel continues
to host wrestling matches. The outcome of the matches is predetermined
via a box office challenge and then teh matches are masterfully
scripted out by the Hostel staff. Very much like the real
thing?
HSJ's Dano and kat run
HSJ Madness; a tourney matching 64 actors and 64 actresses in a
tournament where the HSJ readers decide. The eventual champions
were Jodie Foster and Harrison Ford.
inargargunzargun runs
Redhead's guest column explaining that there is so much more to
HSX than the game. Truly the best explanation of the sense
of a HSX community.
Alan Stanley of Max'd
resigns as channel manager of #hsx and appoints Drake of HSJ as
his successor. Drake soon exercises his position to disable
the actual opping of the channel ops.
RELATED LINKS:
May
Champ retires from the
game and leaves his former #1 all time port to Banzai and Redhead
so that they can continue their chase of players such as JD and
HAL.
The Prophets site remerges
with a new socialized format (their description).
MUMMY joins the ranks
of RUSHH and WTRBY of being among the highest upward adjustments.
STRWR sets the record
for downward adjustments by adjusting down over 80 points
HSX has a major screwup
in the way trades are handled and the market goes bonkers which
leads to some billion dollar portfolios. HSX blazes new ground
and keeps traders informed of their plans and their progress as
the day unfolds. The final fix to roll back all trading to
the previous day is accomplished before the HSX day ends.
RELATED LINKS:
June
STRWR breaks the HSX
delist record by almost 100 points (296) over TITAN's not quite
200 delist.
6/9 At least one HSX
fanboy's fantasy is realized as TUS meets Jewel.
Associated Press runs
article: "Web Site Game is Newest Way To Track Actors' Allure".
Rebuttals are quickly posted by players to TT. The rebuttals
cover topics such as number of players and the reasoning behind
certain prices.
For two consecutive
weekends HSX fails to halt the openers. AUST2 leads to quite
the windfall. TARZN and GNRLS are not quite the same universal
profits as the numbers are not as significantly high as AUST2.
RELATED LINKS:
HSX opens a beta site (V2.1?
V3?). The most notable features being a music exchange and that
HSX is now willing to 'pay' players to take the time to make trades
at the beta site.
DAILY is reiussed and
Obiah continues his tradition of informing and making profits for
the HSX community.
Matt 'the Kid' DeMizio
becomes active at HSBR.
HSJ's Ash continues
to create and compile a HSX Collectible Card Game (CCG).
The BABES fund management
is assumed by Big Daddy. Originally a questionable investment
given its origin as a Howard Stern Fantasy fund, BABES becomes a
solid investment.
RELATED LINKS:
July
BLAIR (The Blair Witch)
sets records in its limited release. On the final weekend
of the month, BLAIR maintains the better part of that limited screen
per screen average as it goes wide (26.5K per screen on 1100 screens).
This result is in direct contrast to many a HSX 'experts' prediction.
This gives rise to popular caveat: "But I held BLAIR short."
Columnists in Training
Debuts. Operated by Almohada as a starter site, CIT becomes
the place to get a start and quickly starts placing its first graduates
in ElVee and Bilbo Baggins.
Max Keiser (Max Broker)
start a radio show. The show can be heard in Los Angeles and Orange
Counties on 97.1 FM, every Sunday from 8-9PM
RELATED LINKS:
- Columnists in Training
(taken down)
August
August 1, 1999, the
one and only T.U.S. rears his large bald head on national television
(the broadcast of TUS' meeting Jewel on VH1's Storytellers)
On August 7, 1999 Txredd
and Trav, both columnists at HSBR, get married. It is the
first time a couple has met through HSX and married. HSX sent
a beautiful crystal champagne bucket from Tiffany's engraved with
"Coldcash."
Obiah of HSBR is profiled
by the OC Register.
SIXSN is THE box office
story of August. The movie opens to a record August take and
continues to roll right on through the entire month with 5 consecutive
weekends of over 20M.
A New set of funds is
IPO'd by HSX: DAILY, DAVID, HENNA, and TOON
DAILY is yet the latest
by Obiah in his effort to make profits and educate at the same time.
DAVID is managed by
David of the Prophets. Its sole goal is to make money as quickly
as possible. With the no restraints and incredible effort
and talent, DAVID delists once its portfolio value reaches 25M.
Reaching this lofty goal takes less than a month.
HENNA is the Redheads'
fund and is managed by some of the most capable traders the game
has to offer. The all-female and mostly Redhead management
team is similar to DAVID in its no-hold barred profit first strategy.
Red, TxRedd, Amidala, Reenie, linds, Almo and Mischief. The
fund delists at almost the same pace as DAVID.
TOON is managed by dp3
and is a themed fund with animation being its theme
RELATED LINKS:
Almo and Ash team up to
create the Hollywood Fish Market. Based on the idea of teaching
some to one fish as opposed to giving them a fish, the fish market
is a collection of helpful FAQs
HSJ, The Prophets and
The Hollywood Hostel site admins conspire in the first ever columnist
exchange.
RELATED LINKS:
Kevin Mathers puts up his
portfolio for sale. This time the auction ends with happier
results as HSX buys the port at approximately US$1: HSX$1M.
The transaction is successfully completed and another round of port
auctions starts. Big Daddy and dp3 also put up their portfolios
with HSX again being the customer. (At a later date, dp3 will further
set a historical precedent when he negotiates with HSX to buy his
portfolio back from them)
Mr. JST's HSX Fansite
opens.
Talk Soup HSX Style
debuts as an upbeat Hollywood news center with in depth articles.
It's also the home on the largest film trailer collection on HSX
and is updated daily for HSX traders and the community. Maintained
by Big Daddy who survived previous sites such as ICSS and HSX Hell
RELATED LINKS:
- Talk
Soup HSX Style (closed as HSX fansite Jan 00)
- Mr JST's Fansite
(closed when JST joins The Trades)
September
The Penny Stock Academy
opens. PSA is dedicated to teaching new and experienced players
alike the intricacies and subtleties of playing the Hollywood
Stock Exchange.
STIGM and DBJLP prove
to be the surprise opening hits of the fall. Eventually STIGM
proves the power of a good ad campaign (and quickly folds after
opening) while DBLJP seems to strike a chord with moviegoers and
shows surprisingly good legs (and not just AJUDD’s either).
JD puts up the #3 ranked
portfolio. After HSX bids $540 to win the auction, other large
ports quickly go up on the auction blocks. The genie is irrevocably
out of the bottle at this point.
RELATED LINKS:
October
The month is marked
mostly with disappointments as player favorites such as 3KING and
FIGHT have large downward adjustments. One of the few the
lone bright spots is the TDIGG’s double feature of TBMAN and THOHH.
Both films post double digit upward adjustments.
November
HSX announces that the
Virtual Specialist (the heart of the HSX trading engine) has received
a US Patent. (Oh and its Timothy Maxwell Keiser according to
the Patent? Who’d have guessed that Max was actually Timothy?)
Max gets a spot on Access
Hollywood with “The Hollywood Stock Exchange Update” that runs on
Friday’s. The feature is a short little segment with Max discussing
the ‘hot’ investments as well as “The Battle at the Box Office”
where Max talks about what the HSX prices for the weekend’s openers
are predicting. This little spot immediately gets the studios’
attention as they threaten to boycott AH as Max has dared to make
box office predictions on a nationally syndicated show. AH
holds its ground but Max’s little segment is reworked and the mention
of the opener’s pricing disappeared. Eventually the whole
segment disappears.
On a related note, it
was announced mid-month that NBC took a minority stake in HSX.
The most public evidence of this new relationship was TV commercials
seen during The Tonight Show, The Late Show, and the Today show.
The holiday season is
definitely in swing with kids movies being the most surprising.
POKMN adjusts up 25 points from its 88 halt and TOYS2 rewrites the
Thanksgiving record book adjusting to over 186, yielding an over
2M profit to those who were maxed long.
The other notable box
office feat was the duo of SLEPH and JB19 each doing over 30M on
the same weekend, the first time that two openers had achieved those
type of numbers in the same weekend.
SCMozart starts his
self titled site
RELATED LINKS:
December
Banzai of the Hollywood
Hostel serves as the driving force behind the Golden Goats, a multi-site
fansite awards program. PSA graciously hosts the voting for
the awards.
HSX hosts the first
players’ screening with a special screening of GMILE. The
event is notable in the teaming up of HSX and Warner Brothers to
create the special showing. The screening is well attended
and many of the players and HSX crew meet for the first time in
person. However, it wouldn’t be HSX without some controversy
and there is with Max addressing the audience with the misleading
information that FANTA will delist 12 weeks after its IMAX premiere
and to further short the stock. Attendees of the screening
race home, share the information via the TT and the stock crashes.
The real controversy sets in with Mac declares that this will not
be the case at all but instead IMAX release will be completely ignored
by HSX and the gross total and delist clock will start with the
wide release in normal theaters in Summer 2000.
The ‘text only’ portfolio
is presented by Ben as Christmas present to long time players who
have impossibly large portfolios that take forever to load in the
fully featured portfolio format.
Standard December legs
apply as they lowest delist multiplier for a wide release in December
is 3.70 registered by MANMO (which also adjusted severely downward).
The average delist multiplier for the month is 5.3 with the highest
being registered by GQEST at 7.7 (side note: GQEST’s extraordinary
multiplier is at least partially due to a lousy opening which cost
the current historian one of his most painful to write columns)
Actually as far as opening comparisons go, the only major upward
adjustment is TALNT with the seven downward adjusting movies averaging
about a 15 point downward adjust.
RELATED LINKS:
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