A bull market in currently under way in the virtual stock of Narendra Modi over at Power Play, a fantasy stock market game designed by Moneycontrol in which users can buy and sell top politicians’ stock.
That the online popularity of BJP icon is huge is a no-brainer. But the virtual worth of the Gujarat strongman -- who is staking a claim for the prime minister’s post -- is currently about 17 and 45 times stronger than his rivals such as Arvind Kejriwal and Rahul Gandhi, respectively.
The rules are simulation are simple: you will be given Rs 50 lakh as virtual currency when you sign up and you can put the cash at work in the stocks of politicians whose worth you think is set to rise higher – as many as 46 politicians from across the political spectrum are available to invest in.
Each politician was launched with an initial listing price of Rs 1,000. Consequently, prices are determined on the basis of net votes (up/down) each receives, net users buying/selling politicians’ stock and the number of shares being bought or sold.
To prevent concentration risk, you cannot invest more than 25 percent of your virtual corpus in a single stock. Also, the value of your holding in any particular politician cannot be over Rs 20 lakh -- every hour, your excess holding will be automatically sold off and the amount from the sale will be added to your cash balance.
The player whose portfolio gains the most in percentage terms every week (results are announced every Thursday) gets to win a weekly cash prize of Rs 25,000 -- in real money.
Trends of the political market
The BJP’s popularity is evident: all stocks belong to the party are trading above Rs 1,000 or holding above their initial price.
The bull market in BJP politicians is led by none other than Narendra Modi, whose stock is up about a whopping 2050 percent (at Rs 21,589 at the time of writing) since trading commenced -- going up in a straight line.
Senior BJP leaders Arun Jaitley and Sushma Swaraj have witnessed strong buying too but Nitin Gadkari at Rs 1020 is barely holding above the flat line.
The incumbent Congress’ virtual stocks, on the other hand, have dwindled in line with offline expectations: except for Jyotiraditya Scindia, Sachin Pilot, AK Antony, not one of the remaining 13 listed politicians from the grand old party is trading above the initial price, at the time of writing.
The most punished stock of the Congress lot – and the entire exchange – is vice president Rahul Gandhi (down 52 percent at Rs 477). Outgoing prime minister Manmohan Singh is down about 50 percent to Rs 503 while the stock of Congress chief Sonia Gandhi has slumped nearly 40 percent to Rs 610.
Some other interesting trends: in regional parties, AIADMK’s J Jayalalitha is leading her Karnataka rival, DMK’s K Karunanidhi, while among Uttar Pradesh politicians SP’s Akhilesh Yadav is slightly ahead of BSP supremo Mayawati.
In West Bengal, TMC’s Mamata Banerjee is witnessing more buying interest compared to the Left’s Prakash Karat or Sitaram Yechury. While Ram Vilas Paswan is leading his Bihar rivals Lalu Yadav and Nitish Kumar. There’s little separating Kashmir rivals Omar Abdullah and Mehbooba Mufti.
The stock of another social media favourite, Arvind Kejriwal, has witnessed fervent buying and selling, falling to a low of Rs 565 recently, then bouncing back to trade at Rs 1297. The AAP leader enjoys the fourth-highest market capitalization after Modi, Jaitley and Swaraj.
Trade and win: To create your own virtual political portfolio, click here.
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