We have just released a new commission schedule to further improve our real world trading simulation.

From now on, the commission for a trade will be calculated the following way: For trades below 1,000 shares, the commission will be $10 flat. For trades above 1,000 shares, the commission will be $10 + $0.01 for each share in excess of 1,000 shares. For example, a 1,500 share trade will incur a $15 commission (1,500 - 1,000) * $0.01 + $10 = $15.

This commission schedule is more realistic, as it makes high volume trades more expensive. In the real market, a large order would influence the stock price - this is now simulated on UpDown with a higher commission.

We’ve launched a significant improvement to our trading system today that makes trading on UpDown even more realistic: partial fills.

So far, all orders were executed in one batch regardless of their volume, allowing for substantial volume trades of even lower volume stocks in seconds. Now, orders will get executed based on the volume that is traded in the real stock market.

Small orders of high volume stocks (i.e. 1,000 shares of Apple (AAPL)), will still be executed immediately. However, the execution of a large order of a low volume stock will happen over time as the volume becomes available.

For more info, check out the new paragraph on partial fills in our help section.

Looking forward to your feedback!

In today’s release we have changed the UpDown navigation and have also given it a new look and feel.We’ve also released our new Education Center.

The goal of the new navigation is to make navigating the site easier and allow faster access to your portfolio. All the trading features (your portfolio, trading, the watch list, and your performance) can be found under the new navigation item “Trading“. The new “Community” section hosts information about other members, your friends, groups, and networks.

A substantial number of you have asked for more learning content. Today, we launch our Education Center which I hope will be a great resource for beginners and advanced investors. For now, it contains a glossary, an investing 101 section, and an overview of the services that different online brokers offer. You can also contribute by suggesting additional glossary terms or writing a review for your stock broker.

Let us know what you think.

Members frequently ask for is insight into what other members are doing, including the ability to view each other’s portfolios. We’ve resisted this, becasue we want to see how each member does on their own.

But in our Facebook application we have published trading information, specifically when a member makes a buy and sell. This experiment is working well, so we’ve decided to bring it to UpDown.com.

Starting tomorrow, you’ll be able to see when a friend has:

• Made a buy, including the amount
• Made a sell, including the company name and amount
• Added another friend
• Joined a contest, group or network

We’re really excited about this new feature and think it will make the site more interesting for groups of friends.

We’re about to make some improvements that we wanted you to know about.

Over the past few months we’ve added to and enhanced quite a few social features on the site, including groups, contests, networks, friends, and we’re about to make improvements to our member profiles.

These features all make the site more fun, and enable better collaboration and competition. But they work better when members can find each other.

As part of these changes, we’ve decided to require and show real names. We’re also going to show real names across the site by default. You’ll be able to turn this off with the profile settings.

The UpDown community has thousands of college students and alumni, but up until now it’s been difficult to see how you’re doing among members from your school.

Now this is easy with the first phase of our Networks feature. If you have a verified e-mail address from a college or university, you can join a network.

Once you’re in a network, you can:

• See how all members of that network are performing on an annualized, monthly, and daily basis
• Read stock tips and picks written by members from your network
• Send messages to members of your network
• Add friends from your network

Over 1,000 schools are represented so far. Searching is easier than ever.

Go to UpDown Networks to find your school and get started.

Our real-money payout system has been very unclear and very confusing to many UpDown members. First and foremost, sorry about that. Second, we now have what we believe is a very clear and very straightforward way to show you exactly how much real money you will earn each month on UpDown.

If you visit the Contests tab, you’ll see that you have been automatically entered into the October 2008 $3,000 Monthly Performance Contest. For the month of October, you will be paid according to the amount, ranging from $500 to $0.01, that matches your ranking in this contest. We will repeat this process every month so you always know exactly where you stand and exactly how much money you will earn at the end of the month.

Don’t worry, long term investors! In January we will launch a year-long performance contest (and possibly quarterly performance contests too) that will not put you at a disadvantage and will have payouts much larger than those in the monthly performance contests. Our main goal right now is to finally make crystal clear the amount of real money that each member will earn each month.

What do you think? Please let us know!

Brendan
UpDown Team
brendan@updown.com

With the markets dropping, many portfolios are below $1,000,000, and one of the most popular requests from members is to reset portfolios to $1,000,000. We’ve done this on an ad-hoc basis when the requests come in.

We’ve decided to automate this so you can reset your portfolio yourself. Just look for the “Reset Portfolio” link next to your portfolio total.

Go to your portfolio to check it out: www.updown.com/portfolio/

The SEC prohibits short selling of 799 financial stocks in order to strengthen investor confidence - and so does UpDown.com.

The list of stocks that cannot be shorted can be found here.

According to a press release issued by the SEC this morning, SEC Chairman Christopher Cox said, “The Commission is committed to using every weapon in its arsenal to combat market manipulation that threatens investors and capital markets. The emergency order temporarily banning short selling of financial stocks will restore equilibrium to markets. This action, which would not be necessary in a well-functioning market, is temporary in nature and part of the comprehensive set of steps being taken by the Federal Reserve, the Treasury, and the Congress.”

We’ll keep you posted on any changes regarding these restrictions.

Michael

e made three upgrades to UpDown.com this morning:

(1) We redesigned your Home Page to give you faster access to your portfolio, interesting information on stocks you own, your contest standings, and to other UpDown members.

(2) We added a message board to every contest to improve communications between you and your fellow competitors.

(3) We added a “Sponsored Contests” tab to the Contests section to make sure that you don’t miss out on any official contests with great prizes.

What do you think of these upgrades? Please let us know!

The UpDown Team