Assorted Papers 12
The Stock Exchange Finance Game
(1973)

The game commenced on the 15th January, although the teams had been watching the share prices for the previous weeks. Each team had £25,000 to invest. This was supposedly from a win on the Premium Bonds and within the first week some £35,000 had poured out from the balances of our two teams. The Financial Times Share Index promptly proceeded to drop over 30 points due to the introduction of Mr. Heath's Phase II Anti-Inflation Policy and the effect of this was a general loss of confidence in the Stock Market. Neither of our teams therefore had a share that rose significantly throughout the duration of the game. One of the most spectacular losses was made on F. W. Woolworth, which was bought at 115p and which dropped to 89p. We consoled ourselves that everybody competing was in the same boat, but to discover that a team had made considerable profits over the same period was like adding salt to the wound.

There was fierce competition between the two groups and their positions alternated every few weeks with very little to choose between them. However, neither managed to recover their losses, team A coming 212th with a loss of £3,201 and team B finishing 208th with a loss of £3,102.

It is worthwhile reflecting on the fact that if we had kept our capital uninvested throughout the game we should have appeared in the first ten teams.

It is of academic interest to speculate whether our final positions would have been improved had we used the pin and blindfold method on the Stock Market page of the 'Daily Telegraph'.