My husband has a great idea.
If the servers get switched off on Nov 30'th...
QuoteAlpha-One:
Remember remember the 1st of December... tell anyone you know and anyone who knows someone who handles stocks to dump NCSoft from their folios on December 1st. Disseminate this as far and wide as possible. We have less than 8 weeks.
Here we go. Hit them where it hurts.
I like this idea. Even if it was only a temporary dump and bounced back immediately it would send a message that nothing can be viewed in isolation, and (like Numina) just because something is 'dead' does not mean it is without influence.
Dramatic as Dec. 1 would be, the problem is that it's "too late."
Then again...nothing prevents them from still selling the IP after the servers go down. It just means "starting over" on all our characters, unless the new owner has a way for people with archived characters to upload them...
Not to sound like a Negative Nancy, but how will one find out who has stock in NCSoft?
Aren't stock brokers bound by some kind of confidentiality clause?
I'm sure there are other questions and issues with this as well, but it's morning and my mind is still a bit fuzzy.
Well... those who can afford it and have at least a little savvy in the stock market can actually do this, themselves, by short-selling NCSoft stock. They are risking a fair bit if the stock somehow climbs back up before they can short cover, though.
One problem is that Dec. 1 is a Saturday. December 3rd would work better.
Nov. 30 might work well, too, then. If the price plummets at the end of the day of the closure, and stays down all weekend (because stock prices don't move on the weekend)...
I know not all of us could be part of a particular website for discussions of stock. We could flood some of the QA boards of places such as where we have stock like our retirements plans or 401k holdings with questions about NCSoft and their management regarding news releases we have read recently. Questions about how they terminated profitable divisions and subsidiaries.
Please be careful about this kind of thing. IAMASB, but this could get an SEC investigation and may be on the grey side of legality. Maybe Olantern has an answer for this but I'm leery of this.
Why is this the greyside? We have as much information available to us as anyone in the public. None of this is insider trading. Selling stock of an investment whose policy offends the shareholder has been a long standing method of getting a company's attention.
Kheprera raises a valid concern, but I think so long as we don't attempt to manipulate the stock value expressly to profit (which would be hard for us to do), we're in the clear. This doesn't mean we can't profit; given NCSoft's declining stock market values, a sudden uptick of sales on a particularly symbolic day will be notable but not surprising, and short-sellers participating may well collect a profit if it turns out that the price to which it drops is stable and doesn't swing back up. Which, again, given the currently downward trend, is possible.
Manipulating the stock market t is a no-no. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_manipulation) SEC isn't just about insider trading. If this kind of tactic was legal then wouldn't more people do it?
I would feel much more comfortable consulting someone in the business before participating.
Quote from: Kheprera on October 04, 2012, 03:03:02 PM
Manipulating the stock market t is a no-no. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_manipulation) SEC isn't just about insider trading. If this kind of tactic was legal then wouldn't more people do it?
I would feel much more comfortable consulting someone in the business before participating.
Hm. You seem to be correct on this being a no-no. The very last example is a "Bear raid," which is a deliberate attempt to drive down the price. That we're not trying to do it for financial gain or to initiate a take-over is irrelevant. So yeah, this is probably a bad direction to go.
*shrug* Looks like NCsoft is doing it to themselves anyway. heh.
I still don't get it. People are soured on stocks all the time, go on TV and tell their viewers they are selling a certain stock because of A, B, C
This thread set off very loud alarm bells for me even before I got to Kheprera's post suggesting it was a no-no. She is right. This is not a good idea. I understand and acknowledge people's anger at NCSoft, but this crosses a legal line. I don't hold myself out as giving my fellow forumites legal advice, but as a friend, I advise you all: Don't do stuff that might potentially be a crime.
Quote from: Segev on October 04, 2012, 03:36:03 PM
Hm. You seem to be correct on this being a no-no. The very last example is a "Bear raid," which is a deliberate attempt to drive down the price. That we're not trying to do it for financial gain or to initiate a take-over is irrelevant. So yeah, this is probably a bad direction to go.
Right. This would be collusion by multiple traders to drive down the price. I am not a specialist in SEC regulation or stock-related crime, but I know enough about their history to know this is the kind of action those laws were meant to curb.
The second part of Segev's post is the really important one. Many statutory crimes and nearly all civil legal penalties don't require that the person who gets charged have any particular motive in mind. Just wanting to manipulate the stock price is enough. The crime is the price manipulation and the conspiracy to do so. That is enough to get you either fined and censured by the SEC (civil penalties) or charged with a crime.
Pinballdave asked why this differs from A, B, and C getting "sour" on a stock and selling it at the same time. In that scenario, A, B, and C aren't getting together in a meeting, saying, "Let's all sell our stock in order to drive its price down." They're just deciding independently.
Again, this is not a good thing. Please protect yourselves and do not do this.
Due to the very high probability that this recommendation is illegal, I've locked the thread. (Edit: I also removed "Call to Action" from the title...)
Please refrain from engaging in activities that would lead to criminal prosecution. :)