How The Neopian Made His Millions

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	A Red Blumaroo hops past and asks Dan if he would be willing to share his secrets to making millions.

“Why sure, little Blumaroo, I would be more than happy to tell you how I made my millions. I’m curious, though; why do you want to know?”

“Well, it’s kind of embarrassing... my mom can’t afford to give me anything to fight with. My knuckles hurt and I really want to be able to protect my family when danger comes.”

“Well, that’s a noble aspiration. I’m sure I can help you if you are willing to listen to what I have to say. Are you willing?”

“Of course, whatever you have to say, I’m all ears!”

“Well alright then. The first question I have to ask, I hope I’m not being too personal, but how much NP do you have right now?”

“Why do you need to know,” asks the Blumaroo sheepishly.

“Well, how much you have affects how you will best be able to make more NP.”

“Oh, I have...” the Blumaroo rummages through his pockets, “I have 147 NP,” says the Neopet dejectedly.

“Alright then, if that’s how much NP you have to work with, then I know just the thing to get you on your way.”

“Really? What is it?” asks the Blumaroo, jumping up and down on his tail.

“Games. You need to play lots of games.”

“Really? Is that all it takes to make millions?”

Dan chuckles and says, “Oh no, far from it. That is just the first step in a long journey towards riches.”

“Oh, O.K. Well, if that’s the first step, what comes after that step?”

“The next step, believe it or not, is even more fun. In the next step you get to buy stuff.”

“Wait, I thought I was supposed to be making NP, not spending it,” says the Blumaroo, quite obviously very confused.

“Ah, right you are but, have you ever heard the saying, ‘To make NP you have to spend NP’?”

“Yeah...”

“Well, that’s exactly the case here. If you spend your NP wisely the things that you buy will increase in price and in time you can resell them for a sometimes quite large profit!”

“Really? That sounds great! What do you think I should buy first?”

“Good question. There are really two different things you can invest in. The simplest of the two is the stock market. To invest in the stock market, you need a nice amount of NP to start with. To be exact, you’ll need 15,000 NP every day if you are going to do it most effectively. The reason is that to play the stock market and make nice profits you should buy your limit of stocks (1,000 stocks) every day. The lowest you can pay for a single stock is 15 NP so 15 NP times the limit of 1,000 stocks would give you 15,000 NP. It doesn’t really matter which stock you buy; the only thing you need to try and do is to diversify your portfolio (where all your stocks are). What this means is that you shouldn’t buy a ton of any one stock. Buy one stock one day and a different one the next and still a different one the next day. Over time you should build up a collection of almost every stock in the stock market. As to when you should sell the stocks, there is a debate over that. Some sell when a stock reaches 30 NP (double what you should have paid) and some wait until the stock reaches 60 NP and still others go even higher. It’s really up to you, but if you are low on cash, I suggest selling at 30-35 NP for starters. You can always up the number later when you have more NP to work with.”

“That sounds cool, Dan, I’m going to go off and buy me some stocks right now!”

“Not so fast, little one; there are other things you can invest in besides stocks.”

“Oh.” The Blumaroo sits back down and gets ready to listen again.

“Alright, the other things that you can invest in are items.”

“You mean like keyrings and sand and stuff?”

“Oh, goodness no!”

“Then what?”

“That’s what I’m going to tell you,” says Dan, smiling.

“Oh, alright.”

“The reason you should not invest in items like what you just mentioned is that those items have saturated the Neopian market for years and will never be worth anything. You should focus on items that are in limited supply. Generally the best items to invest in long term are retired (rarity 180) or special (rarity 101) items. In general, these items will never be released again or are rarely released. Therefore, the longer the items hang around, the higher their price will be. The reason is that over time they will disappear off of the site either through random events or actions of the owner of one of the items.”

“Cool! So does that mean that I can go and buy any items that are rarity 180 or 101 and know that they will go up in price?”

“Not exactly. First off, you should not buy something that has already increased dramatically in price since its release into Neopia unless you are an advanced investor since your chances of making little or even negative profit are much higher. Also, you always need to check the origin of an item. If an item is rarity 101 but is released by the Tombola on a daily basis in the hundreds then it would be a very bad investment. If you’re not sure where an item came from, check on the boards and someone will be able to help you. Other than that, have fun.” Dan thinks for a moment then says, “Oh, one other thing; if you are buying an item that is only a couple thousand NP, then don’t be afraid to buy more than one of the item. The more you spend in the beginning, the more your profit can be in the end.”

“That sounds like loads of fun! Are you sure that’s what it takes to be rich?”

“Well, actually, there are other things you can do. There is restocking, which is the most profitable form of NP making in Neopia. There is also buying mispriced items off of the Shop Wizard and selling for a profit but those are for another guide.”

“Oh, alright. Well, thanks for all your help! I’m going to go try out what you said right now.”

“Alright, you do that. Don’t forget to have some fun while you’re doing it!”

“You better believe I’ll have fun,” says the Blumaroo as he hops off into the distance.

“Hmm,” Dan thinks to himself, “I think that was some of the best advice I have ever handed out! I should put all that into a guide for the Neopian Times or something.” Dan thinks for a second. “Nah! It would never work.”

Author’s Note: I’m not really as full of myself as this article suggests. Honest, I’m not.