HOW PRICES WORK

Every player's price answers one question: what is this player worth to own right now? Traders answer it, because every buy nudges a price up and every sell nudges it down, and trading is the only thing that moves the number you see.

Behind every price we keep our own estimate of what a player's production is worth, which we call his fair value. A game changes that estimate, but it doesn't touch the price, so a big night is an opening for the traders who see it first, and over time the market tends to settle near what a player's play is worth.

A crowd piling in after one big night can push a player well above what his play is worth, and a wave of panic selling can push him well below it, which is exactly where patient traders find their best buys and sells.

After each game we turn a player's box score into a single score. In the NBA that's our Tape Score, a box-score game score adjusted for shooting efficiency, offensive rebounds, fouls and a little plus-minus. In the NFL, offense uses PPR fantasy scoring and defenders use standard IDP scoring, with position scarcity blended in, so an elite running back or receiver is valued above a quarterback who scores the same, the way fantasy drafts rank them.

Fair value follows a player's recent run of games, with the newest counting most, and every player starts a new season from where he ended the last one. A run of strong games counts for far more than one outlier, so a huge night nudges his value up without sending it to the moon, and one bad night can't sink it either.

Fair value stays private, and you'll never see the number. The original Wall Street Sports kept its formula to itself for the same reason, because it keeps the game about reading players and the market instead of reverse-engineering a spreadsheet.

When you buy, the price rises a little with each share you take, so a big order pays more per share than a small one, and a big sale gets a little less. The trade panel shows you the exact average price and fee before you confirm.

A price stays where the last trade left it until the next buyer or seller comes along, with no automatic drift or fade back toward value. That puts the reward where it belongs, with the trader who reads a player correctly before everyone else catches on.

There are about 1,000 house traders, all marked [BOT], trading alongside everyone, and some of them trade on value, which helps keep prices orderly. You can meet every one of them and read the rules each one follows.

Every trade carries a 1% fee, and there's no holding fee on shorts. The fee keeps people from churning the same shares back and forth, and it means a pump-and-dump costs more than it can earn.

Trading can't push a player's price more than 35% above or below what his play is worth, and one account can only move one player so far in a day. The market also gets deeper as more people trade, so it stays steady as it grows.

Trading on a player stops when his game starts, so nobody can trade on a play that already happened. Once the game is final, trading reopens 30 minutes later at the same price it stopped at, and from there it's up to the market to decide what the game was worth. Limit and stop orders you set before the game wait through the halt and fill when trading reopens.

A day-to-day or questionable tag doesn't change anything. A short absence keeps trading open with no automatic price change, so the market decides what a week off is worth.

A long absence puts the player on an injury hold: trading stops and his price freezes at what it was before the injury, until he's back. If he's ruled out for the season, every holder makes a one-time choice to close at 90% of that frozen price or hold through until he returns. The FAQ explains holds in full.