Welcome back to the B1G Stock Market Game! As briefly discussed last week, I'm looking at incorporating stock dividends into the game. Keep scrolling after the formalities and the weekly update to see what the dividends could look like.

The Rules

1. Start with an initial investment equal to the average of all current investors. This week, that’s 455 Delaney Dollars ($455DD).
2. Select team stocks to buy.
3. After the week’s games, sell, hold, and/or buy for the next week.
4. Max number of any one team’s shares that you can own is 50.

Team stock value comes from Teamrankings.com. The value of each team is the inverse of their current rating (out of 130 FBS teams), so team #2 costs $129, #6 costs $125, #129 costs $2.

What Teams Should I Invest In?

Buy low, sell high. Or vice versa. Buy shares of your own team, or feel all greasy by buying shares of your rival. While nobody can perfectly predict The Formula, team ratings are pretty much based on their game results, their opponents, and their opponents’ opponents.

Some players diversify, and others go heavy on one stock. You’ll find your niche. If you don’t like the dartboard method, you may want to check out Dead Read’s B1G Stock Report.

This Week

What a time to be alive, folks. rutger did the unthinkable, they won a game! Not only did the knights win, but their stock value increased by an incredible 50%. Their meteoric rise helped the Index gain 13%, bringing our average to $455DD.

The biggest benefactor was YinzerTerp, who was able to buy 50 shares of rutger at only $8DD. YT jumped from 7th place all the way to 2nd. Your humble "writer" also made money hand over fist, and now I'm back to the top ten.

Know what hasn't changed? nym.psuedo making really good choices. A 20% increase hinging on Minnesota and rutger stocks has nym approaching $1000DD. I know I'm rooting for you.

Speaking of Minnesota, the Golden Gophers value is at $108DD, another 9% increase. Their low point was way back in week 3, when you could have bought shares at 65 each. The other big gainer was, again, Illinois. The Illini are now at $65DD, an 18% gain, and a new season high. Illinutgers next week could make or break a lot of portfolios.

The double digit losers this week were Maryland and Purdue, causing decent dents to the financial well-being of boilermaker5, Crab-cakes, waw, and mohner1.

The opening bell has rung, here are this week’s stock prices:

Illinois 65; Indiana 100; Iowa 115; Maryland 71; Michigan 121; Michigan State 112; Minnesota 108; Nebraska 80; Northwestern 73; Ohio State 130; Penn State 127; Purdue 72; rutger 12; Wisconsin 125

Get your buys in by ****6pm Best Time Zone Thursday night.**** And remember, greed is good.

Stock Dividends Explanation

Okay, you've kept reading to this point. First, I appreciate it, and second, you've just entered into a contract to provide honest feedback on my harebrained scheme: incorporating stock dividends.

I came up with this trying to figure out a reason invest in some of the big teams. Ohio State is ranked number one, nowhere to go but down. In real life, a successful company will pay its shareholders a portion of the profits, the dividend. I think we can do the same in this game using ESPN's SP+ Ratings.

Three times during the season, teams with a positive SP+ rating will pay out, after weeks 4, 8, and 12. You'll get paid for every share of that team you own, but you get paid more the longer you own it, up to 3 weeks=100%. I've color-coded everyone's picks on a test run, crunched the numbers, and paid out dividends.

Post Week 4:

Blue means those were new stocks, a 33% dividend rate, green is 2 weeks for 66%, and gold is 3+ weeks at 100%. Let's use MC ClapYoHandz for our walkthrough. MC had 5 shares of Illinois, 1 Indiana, 1 Minnesota, and 1 rutger, all owned 3+ weeks. Illinois was really bad then, so they had zero dividends, as did rutger. Indiana had an SP+ rating of 10.8, though, and Minnesota was 4.6. 10.8+4.6=15.4, rounded down to 15. MC could've used that to but a rutger, or maybe a good stock.

I made the OSU ONLY as a display, too. The Buckeyes stocks were $125DD preseason. OSU ONLY bought 4 shares, and had $10DD remaining. Post week 4, Ohio State shares were selling at $130, and Ohio State had an SP+ rating of 31.1. 4 shares of that paid out $124DD, which combined with the liquid assets gave OSU ONLY the opportunity to buy yet another share. Fun!

Week 8

Fast forward to this week, and this is what everyone's dividends would be. I didn't add in the previous dividends for anyone but OSU ONLY, who now has enough to get one more Buckeye stock. nym.psuedo's savvy investing, plus the new dividends, pushes into the four digit territory.

All of this was done with no knowledge of the dividends process. Next year, when we are all more experienced, we could find this to be a fun wrinkle. Let me know what you think!