Stock Rounds
Auctions, buying and selling shares, presidency and the stock track.
Stock round actions
Starting with the priority player and going clockwise, each player on their turn does one of (rulebook p. 10):
Passing does not take you out of the round: when your turn comes again you may act. The Stock Round ends when all players pass in a row.
Launching a Minor Company
The Minor charters are dealt face up in columns of four (three columns, two in the Short Game). Only the bottom charter of each column is available; launching it reveals the next one up.
- The player who starts the auction makes the first bid: at least 120, in steps of 5.
- Clockwise, each player raises (by any amount they can pay, in steps of 5) or passes. A player who passed is out of this auction.
- The last bidder chooses any available Minor — the bid is for the choice, not for a named company — and launches it.
- Play continues with the player to the left of whoever started the auction.
Launching the company:
- The winner takes the president’s certificate and pays the whole bid into the company’s treasury. The other shares go into the treasury too.
- Starting price = half the bid, rounded down to a printed price that the current phase (or an earlier one) allows: 60–90 in yellow, 60–110 in green, 60–135 in purple and grey.
- Put one company token on the stock track at that price, one on the Earnings per Share chart, and one as a hub on the company’s home spot on the map.
Adaptive Company’s president chooses its home now: any empty basic city spot
(not a capital, mine or port, nor reserved for another company), with or without a tile.
[Landmarks] Events and Direct-to-Major launches change auctions (Events, Direct-to-Major).
Buying and selling shares
In one turn you may first sell any number of shares at once, then buy one share.
Selling — at the current price, money from the bank:
- Never sell so that a company has no president, and never put the bank pool above 50% of a company (2 Minor shares, 5 Major shares).
- No selling a Minor that has not operated yet (so nothing can be sold in the first Stock Round).
- One sale per turn: all shares you sell that turn go at the same time, and each company you sold drops one step on the stock track, however many shares were sold.
- Only single shares can be sold; a president’s certificate only changes hands through a change of president.
Buying — one share at the current price:
- From the company’s treasury (the money goes to the company) or from the bank pool (the money goes to the bank).
- You may own at most 60% of a company: president’s certificate + 1 share of a Minor, president’s certificate + 4 shares of a Major.
- You may not buy a company you sold shares of earlier in this Stock Round.
- There is no limit on how many certificates you hold in total.
Presidency and priority
If a sale or purchase leaves another player with more shares than the president, the presidency moves to them at once: swap the president’s certificate for two of their single shares. They now run the company and all its assets. On a tie, it moves to the tied player next clockwise from the old president.
End of the Stock Round
- The priority marker goes to the player to the left of the last player who did something other than pass.
- Every company whose shares are all owned by players (none in its treasury or the bank pool) rises one step.
- Move the round marker to OR1 and start the Operating Rounds.
The stock track
Each company’s token marks its share price. Tokens in one column stay in the order they arrived: the first in a column sits on top, later arrivals go below it. That order breaks ties in the operating order.
| What happens | Price movement |
|---|---|
| Players sell shares (one sale) | Down 1 |
| Company issues a share | Down 1 |
| Withholds, or earns 0 | Down 1 |
| Pays out more than 0 but less than its price | Stays — token moves to the bottom of its column |
| Pays out at least its price | Up 1 |
| Pays out at least twice its price | Up 2 |
| Fully owned by players at the end of a Stock Round | Up 1 |
After a company has operated, flip its token so it does not act twice if its price drops; flip them all back at the end of the Operating Round.
Price 0: the company is dissolved. Its shares leave the game, its treasury goes to the bank, its trains go to the bank pool and its hubs leave the map.
[Landmarks] The Metropolitan’s token joins the stock track too (Metropolitan).
Issuing and redeeming
Companies issue and redeem their own shares during their Operating Round turn, not in the Stock Round — see step 2 of the operating sequence.