Here is an article from Chuck Diesel, which offers some compelling reasons that the market is actually healthy, and gives a nice tall glass of STFU to the people who are constantly whining, complaining, and bitching about volume. Especially the ones who do it in a sarcastic manner, and thus continue proving they know NOTHING about this market. Enjoy this, and think about it. Maybe those who are preaching volume to the masses will realize how stupid they sound. The key is how much money is being put into buying players, not which players. If people are only buying expensive SOIs, and laying off the cheap stuff, that might be an indicator of buying patterns.

~ChuckDiesel

Volume is a nice term to describe market activity when talking about the real market, but we are at a point now where the use of the term is misleading. Three big winners this week were GTZY, DRNT and PPRC, each of whom has a tiny amount of SOI’s outstanding compared to YAOM. The real market has thousands upon thousands of companies to balance this kind of discrepancy out, be we don’t.

I would recommend using total money spent in the market as a barometer. Multiply volume * average price for each player and add it up. Here’s what I get when I do that:

Week Ending, Money Moved (in thousands), Market Cap (in thousands)
_10/3/2008_____$261.2________$613_
10/10/2008_____$130.6________$303_
10/17/2008_____$358.2______$1,079_
10/24/2008___$1,973.1_____$10,437_
10/31/2008___$1,429.4______$8,628_
_11/7/2008_____$633.9______$5,268_
11/14/2008_____$259.1______$3,550_
11/21/2008_____$159.3______$2,617_
11/28/2008______$52.4______$1,929_
12/5/2008_______$77.4______$1,140_
12/12/2008______$65.6________$801_
12/19/2008______$92.1________$690_
12/26/2008______$13.6________$528_
__1/2/2009_______$8.9________$420_
__1/9/2009_____$119.2________$898_
_1/16/2009_____$368.4______$1,224_
_1/23/2009_____$178.3______$1,248_
_1/30/2009______$88.1________$968_
__2/6/2009______$71.8______$1,109_
__2/13/2009_____$73.2______$1,073_


So, we HAVE, in fact, seen a slight uptick in activity this week, albeit still at a relatively low level. I just think this metric is much more meaningful than volume,at this point (on a side note, we had 16875 shares moved this week compared to 17543 last week). Keep in mind also that this week we had just one IPO (DRNT) compared to two the previous week (BIGB & DIRK).

One Newbie's Perspective

We have a OneSeason user who just joined last Tuesday. This gives him about 3 and a half days on the market. This guy is as green as Kermit the Frog. A lot of people are screaming “MOAR VOLUME, MOAR VOLUME!” and whipping themselves into a frenzy about it. After reading the below comments from a new user, it has become clear to me where we are. Deposits into the system and volume are directly proportional to the rate of market growth. We kind of knew this before, but it wasn’t ever confirmed, or spelled out clearly. Remember when you found OneSeason? Did you drop $2500 right away? Did you deposit $100 here, $100 there, and then in the massive upswing, maybe THEN drop your $1000 in? Read these comments from this new user. Thanks Wildes. Your input is extremely valuable.

Well I have only deposited a real small amount. As a small business owner(Domino’s Pizza) in this economy I don’t have much cash laying around. I was lucky enough to get 1 IPO share of Durant that I sold for a little over $9. Late yesterday I bought 1 Durant for $14 and then sold him for $16 pretty late in the evening. I have 1 share of Gretsky 1 CC and 2 King. The Kings are the only thing I’ve taken a loss on, but I hope to sit on those for awhile hoping this site continues to grow. I have enough free cash to request 3 Duncan, I did this on Durant and only got one, but I want to be able to get at least request 3. The Nation is awesome and both of the profits I made on Durant were a direct result of reading and staying up with the forums. I’ll definitely be contributing to the cause when I can.

~Wildes12

So, i just ask that you read this, and think about it heavily. What if this is the majority of new users? OneSeason is here for the long term, and low, low, small incremental growth, and 100,000 more users in the next couple years, with experiences like our friend Wildes12 had, and we’ll be right where we want to be. Huge spikes in sign up, huge spikes in volume, aren’t good for OneSeason. All of us sitting around will just cash out faster than you can blink. Then what? The market goes back to 300k? 200k? Small growth. This market is progressing exactly as it needs to. Low volume. Incremental gains. Incremental losses. Then a little more more incremental gains. Think years. Not Weeks or Month. You’ll be fine.

Lots of talk in the forums about cancelling IPO timestamps that are more than a couple minutes old. I am not, and here is why. We know that one of the things OneSeason uses to determine the maximum percentage that someone can get of an IPO is off of participation on that IPO. The market conditions are also a factor. The more people who are in the IPO, the more people who will get shares. The fewer people on the list, the higher the percentage of the shares someone can get will be. Don’t ever just assume that you are out of the game on an IPO. The longer the line, the more interest that is shown, the lower the % of shares one person can get, and there will be more total numbers of people who get the IPO.