Voyages and the first shares · 1100s–1600s
1602
The Dutch East India Company sells shares to anyone
The VOC raises money from the public, and its shares start trading in Amsterdam.
In 1602 the Dutch East India Company (VOC) let anyone in the Dutch Republic subscribe for shares, raising about 6.4 million guilders from over a thousand investors. It's often called the first public offering.
The capital was permanent: investors couldn't take their money out after a voyage, so they sold their shares to someone else instead, and a market in them grew in Amsterdam. The company paid its first dividend in 1610, partly in spices.
💡 Why it made sense then
Trading with Asia took years and huge fleets. Permanent capital let the company plan for the long term, and a place to sell shares let investors get out without the company paying them back.
🎮 In Journey Shares
Listing someone in Journey Shares is the game's public offering: the first buyers get the lowest prices, and the player who listed them earns 1% of every buy in the first week.
Ideas it gave us
- 📈 IPO (initial public offering)
An IPO is the first time a company sells shares to the public, after which its stock trades on an exchange.
- 📈 Share
A share is a single unit of a company's stock. The number of shares you own divided by all shares outstanding is your percentage of ownership.
- 📈 Shares outstanding
Shares outstanding are all the shares of a company currently held by investors. The float is the part of them that's free to trade publicly.
- 📈 Dividend
A dividend is a cash payment a company makes to its shareholders out of its profits, usually every quarter.
- 📈 Stock exchange
A stock exchange is a regulated marketplace where buyers and sellers trade shares, such as the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) or Nasdaq.
- 📈 Stock
A stock is a unit of ownership in a company. Owning stock gives you a share of the company's value and, usually, a vote and a claim on its profits.
Practise with $10,000 in play money
Free. No real money involved.