Investment

Investment is a method of generating funds in Universal Paperclips during Stage 1.

Summary
Investment is opened to the player by researching the Algorithmic Trading project. This will create a trading window where the player can Deposit funds and Withdraw them.

There are two clickable buttons and a drop down menu, as well as a list of three values. The values are for "Cash", "Stocks" and "Total", and are in dollar amounts. The drop down menu lets you choose Low, Medium or High risk investments. The clickables are "Deposit" which will deposit all of your available Funds into the market at once, and "Withdraw" which will withdraw the value currently in "Cash", leaving the value in "Stocks" behind.

You have no control over the table of stocks -- it's just a visual. Under the Investments box is a clickable for "Upgrade Investments Engine" followed by Level: n, where n is the current level. You begin at 0, and require 100 yomi to improve (see below).

Strategy

 * Start early, and let compound interest work its magic
 * Keep at low risk at least until you've improved the investment engine to Level 2
 * Withdraw half of funds before increasing the risk level. If selection was too risky and you lose funds, lower risk and deposit again.

Upgrades
The investment engine can be upgraded with yomi (gained through Strategic Modeling)

The cost of Level $$n$$ is $$100 * n ^ e$$. (Here $$e$$is the mathematical constant Euler's number, 2.718...).

The starting profit/loss ratio is 0.5 and increases in increments of 0.01 for each level ($$0.5+n*0.01$$, n is the level)

Keep in mind that Level 3 is enough to complete Stage 1, and that Investments are only available on that stage, while Yomi will be useful on Stage 2 and vital to Stage 3. Even more, you'll probably have to make most of these improvements before AutoTourney, so it's a bit of a hassle to get so much Yomi.

You can increase the profit/loss ratio by 0.01 four times with Male Pattern Baldness, Cure for Cancer, World Peace, and Global Warming. (this is implied when the AI says, "global stock prices trending upward")