Peter Griffin: Play the market without losing your shirt

Capitalism - a great concept, but it's been playing havoc with people's fortunes for a long time.

It's nice then that the web has a collection of sites that let you play the game without losing anything tangible.

They're known as fantasy stock markets and you can trade shares in blue chip companies or celebrities, sports teams or news events.

For straight sharemarket simulations, a good start is the Herald's own stockwatch. Create a portfolio of NZX stocks, put down some virtual dollars, keep an eye on the news and watch your portfolio rise and fall.

For the advanced trader there's stock-trak. There you can trade bonds, mutual funds, international stocks and even futures options - whatever they are.

The website Trillion Dollar Bet will introduce you to the Black-Scholes option-pricing formula. You can then put it into practice in fantasy trading.

But for a more surreal experience, there's virtual money to be made trading more than company shares.

With the billion-dollar success of our own Lord of the Rings trilogy, we're more interested than ever in how well a film does at the box office.

At the Hollywood Stock Exchange you can bet on the box office success of movies and the stars who act in them.

Buy Starbonds, where you bet on a movie star's ability to command hefty salaries and inflate a movie's overall success. Shares in Friends star Jennifer Aniston are trading at around $62 (in Hollywood dollars).

The key to it all is the trailing average gross, which represents a star's average box-office performance over their last five credited films. Al Pacino bonds trade for around HD$29 and his trailing average gross is over HD$27 million.

Continuing the star theme, you can invest in rock stars, sports greats and business luminaries at the BBC's Celebdaq.

Punters start with 10,000 Celebdaq pounds to invest in bankable stars.

You buy and sell "shares" in listed celebrities and, every week, those shares pay a dividend, depending on how much press coverage those celebrities received.

Eventually your shares are sold out from under you to prevent a small number of fat-cat shareholders cornering the market in Kylie Minogue or David Beckham.

Not surprisingly, tabloid stalwarts Robbie Williams and Prince Charles have healthy share prices and are in the "green" most of the time - meaning they are regarded as the upwardly mobile movers and shakers of the market.

The simulations also extend to politics, which really is one big game of supply and demand. Check out PolitiStock which allows you to buy shares in (US) senators and Presidential hopefuls.

"Stock prices will change based on a politician's popularity as well as supply and demand of his or her shares," the site tells us.

On Politistock.com, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and Hillary Clinton are turning over the biggest volumes of so-called soft money at the moment. News feeds to the site give an indication of the latest headlines that may have political implications. Even Bush choking on a pretzel may be enough to put a dent in your portfolio.

The concept is the same at Wallstreetsports.com where you trade shares in the Red Sox baseball team or basketball's LA Lakers. The value depends on the performance of the teams. Your team wins a season game and you may make a few bucks. Win the Superbowl and hit the jackpot.

At US news futures
the commodity being traded is - you guessed it - news.

"Let's suppose that you want to invest in the outcome George W. Bush will be elected President in 2004," the site reads.

You buy a contract predicting that will happen, and if it does you're in the money.

Whether you're trading politicians, celebrities or real stocks, the market is merciless. You'll make and lose fortunes in a day. But that's the fun of it. Along the way you may learn something you can apply to a real share portfolio.

* Email Peter Griffin