Introduction
Why?

A few nights ago there was a discussion in IRC about the history of HSX. We laughed and remembered the good old days...when TITAN delisted...when there was relevant information on the Money...when Gary Burke was detained in Canada before going to California...

I then had the "brilliant" idea of assembling this. It has been hard. I've had to weed through old columns and old interviews. But it's been fun. It's good to laugh again at some of these things.

This isn't without mistakes. I know that some of these things are probably blatant lies. So, if you have updated info, see the end of the document.

Happy Reading, trader.

Jan. 99 / Jun 99
Matt's work was much too good to be left in the dark.  Afther consulting with him and gaining his permission, I have attempted an update to this timeline.  I unfortunately managed to muck up some of the things due to my reliance on an HTML editor but I think it still gets the job done.

The actual information I added is limited at best.  If you have any additional tidbits that are worthy to being timelined, please drop me a line.

From the mouth of Max himself:

Max: HSX was started in January 1996. I was a stock broker for 7 years, and HSX came about from my years of experience, and a general flash of inspiration. Umm, okay, we tried to make it resemble the US Federal Bank & such markets. We try and use the same types of numbers for the HSX stock markets.*

My sources have revealed that at this time you would get $1,000,000 instead of the now customary $2,000,000. Other changes:

• Commissions were 2%
• Fewer stocks and bonds were availble to trade.
• You could only sell or buy 3000 shares per transaction.
• There was no Market Action Board. You had to check the stock lists or have it in your portfolio to check what was moving.
• No Adjustments
• The Player Standings only listed 25 people.
• Max and Company traded in their own accounts. (fun fact: Max was David Ovitz)
• Rule 13D (Traders are restricted from owning more than 5% of a MovieStock or StarBond shares/ bonds outstanding) wasn't enforced by HSX.

HSX also announced at this time that they would reset the game on January 1st and start all players with $2,000,000.*
 

 The name of Jeff Sandler also began growing in importance at this time. Jeff was a master trader, who didn't mind helping others along the way. He had his own  ticker symbol for a while, and HSX was going to do a movie about his life. Jeff retired from the game on January 1st, 1998. He was one of the most widely read columnists anywhere, and helped create the HSB&R. (ed. note: He also was instrumental in getting my broker spot)

RELATED LINKS:

• Jeff's Portfolio from 6/13/97 
• Jeff's Treatment for "The Jeff Sandler Story"(JEFF) 

The reset didn't happen on January 1st. It happened sporadically during the first week of January. HSX was playing with the prices and lots of people lost money because they bought in too high.

Newsweek also did a full page article on HSX. It mentioned one hot stock: Vegas Vacation.*

February

Major delists were the Liar Liar delist (LIARL) and pumping of money into overhyped stocks like Anaconda.*

May

Father's Day, starring Robin Williams, bombs.

5th Element, starring Bruce Willis, bombs.*

CNN Online runs the article: "Online 'stock exchange' let you trade in Hollywood Glitz".  Notable for its inclusion of the 'look' of the early days and for a mention of Michael Burns, the original Mac.  Michael Burns will eventually leave HSX to do films full time, in direct contrast to Max's comment to merge the film and HSX parts of the company.  HSX Films is spun off and eventually becomes Ignite Entertainment.

RELATED LINKS

• CNN Article

June 7 The Hollywood Stock Journal is founded by Dale Borgen.  The Journal (not at all to be confused with the current HSX Journal) will become one of the main fan sites.  Among its first members is Joe Piechowski who pens the very aptly named "That the Way I See It" column.  Joe establishes himself to be one of the most outspoken columnists, more than willing to point out HSX's short fallings.

The second or third week of June was fun. LSTWD was supposed to delist, and make everyone TONS of cash, but it was held up as the server crashed. The server came back up around the 20th.

Other big stocks at this time were MYBST, MENIB, and HRCLS.**

On Ticker Talk, the big talk was about Short Selling. This was about the first that the idea was generally wanted and accepted. Max would later reveal:

Max: We're also going to implement, come August or September, short selling and margin.**

RELATED LINKS:

• Jeff's old HSB columns 
• Chuck's old HSB columns 
• Sara's old HSB columns
• HSJ (the latest incarnation of the Hollywood Stock Journal)

One of the biggest problems that the Exchange has had occured about the second week of July. "My Best Friends Wedding" and "Batman" were scheduled to delist. Unfortunately, not everyone got their cash, and orders were backlogged for about two days. HSX handled this admirably and tried to "go back in time" by using some old back-up tapes of the Exchange.

Unfortunately, the backup fails and HSX announces that everyone's account will be reset on August 11th.

The good thing about this is that the Founder's Cup begins. The Founder's Cup is when things were extremely serious. A trip to Antigua was on the line. The winner would be from a random drawing from those on the leaderboard at the end of the Cup.

The Cup ends on October 31, 1997.*

August

Beavis Las Vegas starts up his now famous, "Five Questions" based on Comedy Central's Daily Show bit of the same name.*

The big reset occurs and goes off with relatively few hitches. The Founder's Cup has begun.

"The Money", a site I called "The Grandaddy of all HSX Sites" stopped updating when Mr. Gary Burke went to work for HSX in California.*

RELATED LINKS:

• The Money's main page 
• The Power Lunch column at The Money
• The Money's links page 

RELATED LINKS:

• The former HSX Press

Founder's Cup is going on...bruhahahaha...

Also during this time the development of the socialiaztion aspects of HSX came about. People had been hanging around on the Big Board at The Money for a long time. The Money was one of the premiere fan sites. The owner, Gary Burke, later went on to work for HSX.

The main live chat came about on WBS, private room HSX. Friendships were
made and rollercoasters were planned. And most of all, money was made.

Names were also made at this time. Among them were:

 

Dano Phoenix

Margie Columnists at the HSJ, HSB&R, and Max'd.

Of course, the Founder's Cup also saw a growth of Fan Sites and columnists. Some wanted to help the player, and others wanted to manipulate the stocks to make themselves money.**

October

The HSX Advice site is first started

The Founder's Cup ended on the 31st. After that there was a large party on WBS for the awards ceremony. Around 80 people took part in it.

The awards were presented:

• Best Fansite Columnist: Dano of the HSJ
• Best Rookies: Brok-rich and Bubba Z
• MVP: Phoenix
• Best Fan Site: The HSB&R
• Trip to Antigua: Catholic Man

November

After the Founder's Cup the HSX current interface was debuted in a beta limited to every columnist who volunteered (hehee...). 

Post Founder's Cup Hot Stocks: SCRM2 and TITAN (more on TITAN later...)****

A new bond system was instituted in November. There was a whole mess with several bonds, including: RATKI, SPOIT, BREYN, and HGRAH.

December

Titanic was a Dark Horse. As I remember it, the hype wasn't really there until about a week before the movie came out. Titanic also had huge multipliers and was one of the highest priced stocks on the Exchange.

Sources & References:

I am indebted to the following people:

*JD from the Hollywood Stock Journal (currently HSJ). He has sent me numerous columns and interviews as well as a base history of HSX.

*Linda Hudson (of Max'D), who helped JD with the basic history

*Stride, Formerly of the Hollywood Stock Journal

*The HSB&R cabinet  Also, the HSX columnists back columns. Here's  to never throwing stuff away!

*IRC, #hsx (dano, Jeffrey, Obiah, Selat)

Max'd on Movies The Hollywood Stock Exchange - Archives, and email.

WRYDE

Incidentlly, the little asterisks colors line up with where I found the data. Additions, Revisions, Comments, Questions, Flames, and Penguins can be sent to: matthewd@hsbr.org

© 1998 Matthew DeMizio, All Rights Reserved. May not be reprinted or republished without permission of the author. I claim an Editor's Copyright to this; the sources recounted herein retain all rights to their material. I did write that stupid JavaScript thingies...I retain copyright on them. Also the dumb logo (Microsoft Image Composer).

Update Sources

• David and Ramon of the Prophets
• Redbird of the Trades
• Redhead of the Hostel
• and numerous others that in my standard way I can't remember  8-(

• #hsx types that in my standard way I can't remember exact names to the tidbits  8-(