Cookie Clicker Complete Stock Market Guide (WIP) (2024)

Introduction

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Having a Cookie Clicker save from many years ago, I already had almost everything done when the game came to steam, but I had never bothered with some of the shadow achievements until now. So as I work my way towards the Gaseous Assets achievement, I've found myself learning way more about the stock market than ever before, as most of the tech required to get Liquid Assets and Gaseous Assets (legitimately) is not even required to get all the other stock market achievements. But for those of you who also want Gaseous Assets, or perhaps those of you just looking to expand your game knowledge, I've decided to document everything right here, in one place.

It also just gives me something to do while I wait.

For cookies.

This guide is still a WIP, so please be patient with me as I add more info. If you spot any info that is wrong, please point it out in the comments so I can fix it ASAP.

Basic Info (WIP)

This section is a WIP, but since it will only contain basic info it is only vital for new players, and is thus low priority.

Feel free to skip this section of the guide if you're familiar with the basics of the stock market.

OverviewThe stock market is a minigame that one can access by spending a sugar lump to upgrade their banks to lv. 1, after which it can be accessed on any future run so long as the player owns at least 1 bank. It may look overwhelming at first, but once you learn to read it you'll appreciate it's compactness.

The objective of the stock market is to buy and sell shares for different stocks in order to turn a profit. In essence, you buy shares when a stock is cheap, and sell those shares when that same stock is much more expensive.

WIP

StocksIn the stock market, there are 16 different types of stocks (listed below), each one corresponding to a different building you already own. The amount of shares you can own for a given stock is calculated based on the level of your Offices, how many of the associated building you've owned (highest amount in this ascension), and the level of that building. To be more specific:

N = F + H + 10*L

where

N = number of shares you can own

F = bonus storage space from your offices

H = highest amount of the associated building owned this ascension

L = level of the associated building

So for example, if you just bought your 200th Time Machine, your time machines were level 3, and you have level 2 offices, you could calculate the amount of CRM shares you can own like so:

N = 25 + 200 + 10*3 = 255

ID*IconSymbolStock NameAssociated Building**0CRLCerealsFarm1CHCChocolateMine2BTRButterFactory3SUGSugarBank4NUTNutsTemple5SLTSaltWizard Tower6VNLVanillaShipment7EGGEggsAlchemy Lab8CNMCinnamonPortal9CRMCreamTime Machine10JAMJamAntimatter Condenser11WCHWhite ChocolatePrism12HNYHoneyChancemaker13CKICookiesFractal Engine14RCPRecipiesJavascript Console15SBDSubsidiariesIdleverse

* All calculations done using these IDs add 1, so you can just think of their ID's as a numerical label in the order they appear. (i.e. CRL is 1 & SBD is 16)

** Note that Grandmas and Cursors do not have any stocks associated with them. They are both special cases, and are loosely associated with Brokers and Offices respectively, which are described below.

BrokersWIP

OfficesOffices are a sort of stock market upgrade that give you extra storage space for all stock types and unlock access to certain loans, depending on their level. You start with level 1 offices each ascension and can upgrade them by sacrificing a certain number of Cursors, although you won't be able to do so unless your Cursors meet the required level.

LvlIconNameBenefitsUpgrade Costs1Credit GarageNone100 Cursors

(Requires Lvl.2+ Cursors)2Tiny Bank+25 warehouse space for all goods200 Cursors

(Requires Lvl.4+ Cursors)3Loaning Company1st Loan access

+75 warehouse space for all goods350 Cursors

(Requires Lvl.8+ Cursors)4Finance Headquarters1st Loan access

Advanced Info

Ceilings, Floors, & Resting ValuesBank CeilingStock RNG

I would reccomend players of all skill levels read from this section onwards.

Each stock has 3 values that you need to familiarize yourself with: Its Ceiling, Floor, and Resting Value.

The Ceiling Value of a stock is the absolute highest value you can ever expect that stock to reach. This is the ultimate selling point, and if a stock reaches its ceiling (or even gets within $5-10 of it) you should always sell. The value of a stock can rise beyond this number, but past this point any positive delta is decreased by 10% per tick, which basically means it it will quickly lose all of its upward momentum and inevitably fall back down.

The Floor Value of a stock is the absolute lowest value you can ever expect that stock to reach. It is like the ceiling, but in the other direction, so always buy if a stock is near it's floor. The floor of a stock usually doesn't come in to play, since the floor of most stocks is below $0, and stock values have a hard limit to never go below $1, but it is still important to know for the more expensive stocks. In general, if a stock's value is either below $5 or within $10 of its floor, buy its shares immediately.

The Resting Value of a stock is the absolute most important of these 3 values to know, as it is the value that the stock actively tries to return to, making it extremely important to know for strategic selling and buying (more on this later). It's not just the average value of that stock, rather the game updates the value of the stock on every tick to be 2% closer to its resting value, doing all RNG calls afterwards. This also means that the further a stock is from its resting value, the more drastically it will attempt to return to it. Note that since the resting value causes a flat change in value every tick, while the ceiling value only decreases upward momentum (as opposed to giving it downward momentum), the resting value can actually overpower the bank ceiling in some cases.

Here is a table of the default Ceiling, Floor, and Resting Values for each stock. It's quite easy to remember, since the values increment by $10 for the next stock type.

IconStockCeilingRestingFloorCRL$59$9-$91CHC$69$19-$81BTR$79$29-$71SUG$89$39-$61NUT$99$49-$51SLT$109$59-$41VNL$119$69-$31EGG$129$79-$21CNM$139$89-$11CRM$149$99-$1JAM$159$109$9WCH$169$119$19HNY$179$129$29CKI$189$139$39RCP$199$149$49SBD$209$159$59

The ceiling and resting values of all stocks can only be increased by leveling your banks with sugar lumps. For every 1 level your banks have, all stocks permanently raise their ceiling and resting value by $1. Thus at level 10 banks, all values listed on the table above would be increased by $10 except for floor values. Floor values cannot change.

In addition to each stock having its own ceiling value, there is also a (or Market Cap) that must be taken into account. This acts like an overall ceiling value for ALL stocks, and will set the soft cap on how high all stocks can go. Even if a stock has a ceiling value higher than the bank ceiling, once it reaches the bank ceiling it will be stopped just as if it had reached its own ceiling value.

The bank ceiling can also be increased by leveling your banks, but it increases by $3 per bank level instead of $1 per level. By default, your bank ceiling starts at $97 (so at level 1 your bank ceiling is exactly $100), and will increase by $3 for every level you give your banks.

This is by far the most technical part of the stock market, though most of the information is actually quite unneccessary to know, just the general gist of it is fine. If you would like to know more, check out the wiki page for all the details.[cookieclicker.fandom.com]

The most important aspect to understand about the RNG is what it means when I talk about a stock's "Delta" value.

When the stock market ticks, every stock updates with a new value. How this value is chosen is based on RNG, as well as which mode it is in, and is also affected by it's delta value. The delta of a stock is literally a "change in value" for the stock, or more simply a number assigned to how fast it is moving in a given direction.

Every tick, after the resting value update, 2 mode-dependant RNG calls occur:*

A random number** is picked, and the value of the stock increases/decreases by that amount.

A random number** is added/subtracted to the delta value, then the delta value is added to the value of the stock.So as an example, let's say we have a stock worth $20, its resting value is at $30, and its delta is at -0.21 (it has some momentum moving downwards).

The next tick, the game moves the stock 2% closer to its resting value (giving it a value of $20.20)

RNG tells the stock to change it's value by +0.15 (which would put it at $20.35)

RNG also adds -0.09 to the delta value, meaning it now has a delta of -0.30.

The value is changed by the new delta amount of -0.30 (which would put it at $20.05)From the player's perspective, the value increased by $0.05, but in reality the delta just decreased even further, adding more to the already present downward momentum this stock was experiencing.

* Although mutliple re-calculations and calls usually happen, this is just a massively simplified example that is about the extent of what is important to understand. The RNG calls are a lot more nuanced than generating just 2 values.

** The possible ranges for these random numbers are determined by what mode the stock is in.

Modes

In addition to regular stock RNG, each stock is always in one of six "modes", which impose additional rules to its RNG in order to make it more likely to act a certain way.

Each time a stock is assigned a mode, it is given a duration randomly selected between 10 and 1000, which decrements every time the stock market ticks. Since stock market ticks happen every 1 minute, this means that sometimes modes can last for up to 1000 minutes (16 hours & 40 minutes). Once the duration counter hits 0, the stock is randomly assigned a new mode.

The main challenge in the stock market is identifying exactly which mode a stock is in; if you can do that, you can make a lot more profit a lot more consistently (more on this later).

Mode 0: "Stable"12.5% chance

In mode 0, the idea is that the stock's value won't move much per tick, with the delta kept quite close to 0, and is equally likely to move in either direction. In theory, this should lead to a stable line graph similar to the one shown in the picture to the right, but in practice this isn't always the case. The tendency for the stock's value to drift back towards the resting value can often overpower the low activity and cause the stock to gain momentum in a direction, so at times it can end up looking a lot more like mode 1 or mode 2.

Mode 1: "Slow Climb"25% chance

In mode 1, the stock's delta is kept low, and value changes are minimal, but both the delta and value changes are weighted to increase the value of the stock more often than it decreases. This usually leads to a line graph like the one shown on the right, but with some bad RNG and a value that is already close to or beyond the stock's resting value, it can alternate moving up and down often enough to look much more like mode 0. Sometimes the delta picks up enough momentum in the negative direction from bad RNG to make mode 1 look like mode 2, further adding to the confusion.

Mode 2: "Slow Fall"25% chance

In mode 2, the stock's delta is kept low, and value changes are minimal, but both the delta and value changes are weighted to decrease the value of the stock more often than it increases. This usually leads to a line graph like the one shown on the right, and although it happens a bit less often than with mode 1, it can be overpowered by some bad RNG gaining momentum in the positive direction, resulting in mode 2 sometimes looking more like mode 0 or even mode 1.

Mode 3: "Fast Climb"12.5% chance

In mode 3, each tick is weighed heavily to increase the value of the stock, and is therefore the mode in which stock values tend to climb the fastest. Despite not actually being any rarer than mode 4, this mode is still the rarest mode to encounter due to having an additional rule: Every tick, this stock has a 3% chance to immediately switch to mode 4, regardless of how much longer the stock could have stayed in mode 3. When this happens, it is not treated as a normal mode switch, meaning there is no 70% chance to enter mode 5, and the duration from mode 3 carries over to mode 4 instead of a new duration being generated. This almost always leads to stocks in mode 3 getting cut off much sooner, thus lasting a lot less time and being rarer to see. I would consider this the second easiest mode to identify out of the six (right after mode 4), especially because of how uncommon it is to see it.

Mode 4: "Fast Fall"12.5% chance

In mode 4, each tick is weighed heavily to decrease the value of the stock, and is therefore the mode in which stock values tend to fall the fastest. This is typically easiest mode to spot out of all six modes, though large upward spikes can make it tricky. Usually, telling when mode 4 ends proves to be the challenging part.

Mode 5: "Chaotic"12.5% chance

In mode 5, each tick changes the delta and value by a random, potentially large amount, with an equal likelihood of it being positive or negative. Additionally, mode 5 features 2 extra rules:

When a stock switches modes from mode 4 or mode 3, there is a 70% chance to override that mode switch, instead making the stock switch to mode 5.

In mode 5, every tick has a 20% chance to completely override the current delta value with a random delta value between -1 and 1, effectively causing all momentum in either direction to stop be replaced.

Mode Recognition (3-5) (WIP)

Mode recognition is the most vital skill to have in order to be successful in the stock market, so this part of the guide is extremely important. Here I will cover examples of weak/strong modes, explain why they may happen, and how you can go about identifying and distinguishing between them.

When a mode is doing what it is supposed to be doing very well (e.g. mode 3 raising stock value very quickly), it is usually much easier to identify. I will be referring to this as a strong mode. When a mode is doing its job very poorly, or even the opposite of it's job (e.g. mode 1 lowering the value of the stock), it is much more difficult to accurately determine what mode the stock is in. I will refer to this as a weak mode. In the case of modes 0 and 5, I will also use the term neutral mode to refer to situations where the stock is relatively stable and doesn't move much in either direction.

The example images I used in the above "Modes" section of the guide were cherry picked examples; they were each an image of a strong mode (or neutral mode in the cases of modes 0 and 5), since those were the easiest for the reader to identify. Most of the time, modes aren't nearly that clear cut, being somewhere between strong and weak. Modes 0, 1, and 2 tend to look like each other a lot of the time, as well as modes 3, 4, and 5 looking similar to each other.

Let's start by breaking down modes 3, 4, and 5, as they are arguably much easier to tell apart from one another than modes 0, 1, and 2.

Mode 3Luckily, I managed to document a situation where I simultaneously had EGG in strong mode 3 and CKI in weak mode 3, as shown in the following screenshot. This makes the differences between the two much easier to spot.

As you can see, EGG is in a strong mode 3, and is climbing quite effortlessly, while CKI is in a weak mode 3, and seems to be suffering from more frequent drops in value, keeping it from rising much further.

The first thing to note is that a defining characteristic of mode 3 is how it handles its slopes. It's quite apparent that most of the time it is rising in value, it maintains relatively the same slope until it hits its next drop. Then, when it drops, it also usually maintains the same dropping slope until it rises again, and usually drops at a much steeper rate than it climbs. And once it starts rising after a drop, it goes back to a climbing slope very similar to the one it had before the drop.

Combined, this gives mode 3 a very easy-to spot tell: If the stock is rising at a relatively constant rate, and is occasionally interrupted by big, straight drops only to go back to the same rising rate, it is in mode 3. This ends up looking like a zig-zag or lightning bolt pattern, examples of which have been accentuated in the above image with dotted lines.

Even in the most chaotic-looking situations, you can still apply this logic to tell if a stock is or was in mode 3. Can you spot at least a few of these "zig-zags" and "constant slopes" in its history, even if it gets chaotic in between them?

So why is EGG in a strong mode 3 while CKI is in a weak mode 3? I present to you my best theory, along with another image:

As you can see, the red dotted line is both the bank ceiling & CKI's resting value. CKI is fighting to increase its value against two forces, whereas EGG is only fighting against its resting value, as it's still below the bank ceiling (and it's probably getting some better RNG too). Also note that if EGG were below it's resting value, it would be in an even stronger mode 3 than it is now.

In this situation, I would ignore CKI and instead invest in EGG, waiting to sell until it either switches to mode 4 or gets close (within $10) of the bank ceiling.

Mode 4

In the same way that mode 3 has an upward-trending zig-zag and constant slopes, mode 4 features the exact same thing in the other direction. However, this is not the only trick you can use to distinguish mode 4 from the others. Remember the additional rule for mode 3?

"Every tick, this stock has a 3% chance to immediately switch to mode 4..."

When a stock is in mode 3, it is extremely rare for it to stay in mode 3 for its full duration, instead being much more likely to eventually switch to mode 4. This means that, if you manage to identify a stock that is in mode 3, its next mode is almost guaranteed to be mode 4.

So if you're not sure whether the stock you're looking at is in mode 4 or not, be sure to ask yourself what mode it was in before this one.

As with all other weak modes, a weak mode 4 can sometimes be weak enough to travel in the opposite direction, an example of which can be seen on the right. Note that despite the value of the stock increasing rapidly, you can still tell that this stock is in mode 4 due to the zig-zag being present, as well as the slope of the upward spikes being much steeper than the downward slopes (just like how mode 3 drops at a steeper rate than it climbs).

This example likely happened due to a streak of bad RNG combined with the fact that WCH was about $90 below its resting value, which would cause the upward spikes to be much steeper and the downward falls to be less steep due to the constant upward pull.

In a situation like this one, you should avoid buying shares in this stock, no matter how tempting it may look, since it is still in mode 4 and will drop back down.

Mode 5WIP - I'm trying to gather screenshots and that takes a while :(

Consider the above image. An inexperienced stock trader would see this and think that this is in mode 3 (I've literally seen images like this used to represent mode 3 in other guides). It's not, it's actually just trending upward in mode 5, and I'll tell you how I know (and why it's trending upward).

The first trick to identifying mode 5 is usually a dead giveaway, and is why I am so confident that this stock is in mode 5. Just like with mode 4, ask yourself what mode it was in before this one. As you can see in the screenshot, before this large upward spike there was a downward-trending zig-zag, identifiable as mode 4. Now recall that mode 5 has a 70% chance to replace the next mode when a stock changes out of mode 3 or 4. Also recall that mode 3 almost never finishes its duration due to it's additional rule of having a chance every tick to switch to mode 4. Together, this means that mode 5 can be identified quite easily, since the other 3 modes that might've come before it (0, 1, or 2) look nothing like mode 4, and mode 5 follows mode 4 70% of the time.

There is another trick to identify mode 5 involving its capacity to override the current delta value (which on average happens every 5 ticks). A lot of the time that this happens the line graph will briefly plateau, causing irregularity even in the most consistent rises and falls. You can see examples of this in the screenshot, too.

Mode Recognition (0-2) (WIP)

Modes 0, 1, and 2 are MUCH harder to tell apart from each other, so much so to the point that they actually look identical in many situations. Fortunately, there is an aspect to their behavior that lets you sus out which is which.

Mode 0WIP - I'm trying to gather screenshots and that takes a while :(

Mode 1WIP - I'm trying to gather screenshots and that takes a while :(

Mode 2WIP - I'm trying to gather screenshots and that takes a while :(

Strategies (WIP)

So you're now a master at recognizing modes, but you've also now seen how complex the modes can get. This leaves us with just two huge questions left to answer:

"When should I buy?" and "When should I sell?"

The truly correct answer is "Whenever you think it's a good idea to", since even if your judgement sucks right now, you'll only improve over time. While this answer isn't satisfying, I'd say it trumps everything else I write in this section of the guide, since situations will vary, and what works for me may not work for you.

WIP

For those of you who want the quick and dirty details before I finish writing this part of the guide, here's a quick list of what I would do while I play actively:

ALWAYS BUY if the stock is below $5 or within $10 of its floor value

BUY if the stock is in strong mode 3 or 1.

SELL if the stock is within $10 of its ceiling value (unless it is in strong mode 3, then sell at the moment it passes the ceiling value)

SELL if the stock is within $10 of the bank ceiling value (unless it is in mode 3 or 1 AND it has a resting value above the bank ceiling, then sell when it switches modes or gets within $5-10 of its resting value)

SELL if the stock is in any mode 2 or 4.ALSO:

If the stock is noticeably below its resting value:

BUY if in any mode 1 or 3

BUY if in upward-trending or neutral mode 0 or 5

SELL if in downward trending mode 0 or 5 (keep if neutral)If the stock is anywhere above its resting value:

BUY if in strong mode 1 or 3

SELL if in downward-trending or neutral mode 0 or 5

I may have missed something but if I did I'll spot it when I write up this section of the guide.

Source: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2601428565

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