Online 'stock exchange' lets you trade in Hollywood glitz

May 27, 1997
Web posted at: 8:11 p.m. EDT (0011 GMT)

From Correspondent Jim Moret

LOS ANGELES (CNN) -- Now you can get a piece of the action in Hollywood by going online. 

The HSX -- Hollywood Stock Exchange -- is a virtual trading floor where anyone, anywhere can invest imaginary money in celebrities and upcoming movies through the Internet. 

The home page lists the day's biggest movers under "StarBonds" and "MovieStocks." Arnold Schwarzenegger was trading at $1,430 per share, Drew Barrymore at $840.

A share of Steven Spielberg's new movie, "The Lost World: Jurassic Park," was $167.75. The comedy "Addicted to Love" was at $37.25.

"It kind of combines the two most popular pastimes in America, which is Hollywood and Wall Street," HSX co-founder Max Keiser said.

HSX is the brainchild of Keiser, a retired stock-broker-turned-poet, and Michael Burns, a managing director at Prudential Securities. 

On the Web site, players are given an imaginary portfolio of $2 million in "Hollywood dollars" and one calendar year to parlay it into a virtual fortune.

"The game starts January 1 and goes through December 31, and at the end of the year, there will be a mogul of the year," Keiser said. 

The game is free, but the Web site could launch a bull market for its founders. They say studios have expressed an interest in paying for information about the site's 30,000 traders. 

HSX has also made the jump from online to real-time, with its own production company and its first film, "Mixed Signals."

"My partner Michael, who has really spearheaded the film division -- he just got back from Cannes," Keiser said. Burns sold three of their films at Cannes, and four more are in the planning stage, Keiser said. The eventual goal is to merge the two areas.

Related site:

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• Hollywood Stock Exchange 

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