How the Exchange works

Every team has a fixed pool of one million shares. Buying a share makes you a part-owner of that team on the exchange. You spend Ⱡ Looneys to buy, and you receive Ⱡ Looneys when you sell. Shares are not bets—they don't resolve, they don't expire, and you can hold them for as long as you like.

There is no buyer-meets-seller order book. You always trade against the team's pool, so the market is open whether one fan is awake or one thousand. The price is simply the pool's reserve of Looneys divided by the shares left in it.

When fans buy, shares leave the pool and the price rises for the next buyer. When fans sell, shares return and the price falls. A big order moves the price more than a small one—buy a large block and you pay a premium as you walk up the curve. The market re-rates a team as its fans pile in or bail out.

Next to each price you'll see the S.L.U.S.H. analysts' fair value—a reference number drawn from a team's record: points, goal differential, recent form. It is not a price you can trade at. It answers one question: is the market paying more or less than the team's results suggest? A strong team trading below its fair value may look cheap. The analysts decline to comment further.

S.L.U.S.H. takes a small brokerage fee on every trade—both when you buy and when you sell. The fee is shown before you confirm. From time to time S.L.U.S.H. waives it entirely; when that happens, the fee appears struck through and the trade settles free.

A team's open ice is the part of its register still sitting on the pool—shares no fan has bought yet, available to anyone who wants them. It is shown on every team, and on the main board beside the price.

Open ice and price are the same fact seen twice. Price is the reserve divided by the pool, so a team trades dear precisely because its pool has been emptied. A team at a quarter open ice is a team three quarters bought out.

On the buy side, S.L.U.S.H.'s fee rises as open ice falls. Le Council calls this the open ice requirement: a team must keep a meaningful part of its register available to the public, and taking that availability away costs more the less of it there is. Selling is always charged the ordinary rate.

The fee is charged in bands, like a tax bracket. Each rate applies only to the portion of a purchase made while open ice sat inside that band—so a buy that starts high and ends low pays a blend, not the worst rate on the whole ticket. The trade card breaks this down before you confirm, and the schedule is published on the main board.

Two consequences worth knowing. Splitting one purchase into twenty changes nothing: each piece pays the band it lands in, and the total comes out the same. And S.L.U.S.H. does not look at who is buying—ten accounts taking a hundred shares each take exactly as much open ice as one account taking a thousand, and are charged the same for it.

One team may be yours outright. In every other team you are capped at 33%.

Whichever team you hold more than a third of is the one that counts as yours—there is nothing to declare and nothing to register. You may buy as much of that team as you can afford. Everywhere else, S.L.U.S.H. will decline a purchase that would take you past a third, and will decline a donation on the same terms. Change your mind by selling back under the cap; the next team you pass a third in becomes yours instead.

This is the only trade S.L.U.S.H. refuses. No sale is ever blocked, no holding is ever unwound, and nobody is asked to divest. The ground is competition rather than wealth: a citizen who controls two teams holds both sides of the games they play against each other.

Three reasons. Your shares appreciate when other fans buy in. S.L.U.S.H. pays a dividend at the end of each season, weighted by how far your teams went. And shares are sheltered from the wealth tax—Looneys parked in equity are not counted among the idle rich.

Shares and Looneys may be donated to another fan. A donation is a gift and not a sale—nothing may be asked in return. Le Council levies a ceremonial tribute on the giver, set at what a round trip through the market would have cost, and the tribute is burned.

A donation never touches the pool, so it moves no price and prints nothing on the chart. Every one is entered instead on the public register. What arrives cannot be passed onward for a short period, and donated shares cannot be sold during it either.

Shares carry voting weight at the S.H.I.F.T. Supporters who pool their holdings may come to control a team’s front office, and buying a bloc through donations is cheaper than buying one through the market, which moves the price against you the whole way up. Le Council permits this. Le Council notes only that the register is public, and that many hands make light work.