It has been a few days since I’ve written up thoughts about what is going on in the Second Life markets. Some of it is because I’ve been sick and I’ve been busy with other things, but another part of it is that the markets have just sucked recently.

I started trading Second Life Stocks on the World Stock Exchange (WSE), but moved over to doing most of my trading on the Second Life Capital Exchange (SlCapEx). I like SlCapex better because of their webservices and I find I can navigate their site much more easily. I’ve done well on my SlCapEx trading, but recently, I’ve been pulling back from trading there.

SlCapex currently has sixteen stocks listed. Three more are in the IPO phase. However, two of the stocks, Allenvest Investment Group (AIG) and Second Life Media Specialties (SLMS) have had their trading halted. Apparently, AIG resumed trading briefly today but is now being delisted. Brautigan & Tuck Holdings (BNT) has also been halted and is reported to being delisted. I’ve been disinclined to trade in BNT stock until Nicholas Portocarrero’s shares have all been sold. Now, I’m even less likely to trade BNT stock.

As I’ve noted elsewhere, I’m also cautious about investing in Karlfeldt & Delgado Capital (KDC) and SL CapEx (SLCX) because of holdings by Investor Allen, although I expect these will be worked out soon. With that many stocks out of circulation, the folks who are actively trading are involved in a smaller world of stocks. This has resulted in spreads tightening, so investing opportunities for people interested in day trading in SlCapEx are greatly reduced.

Over on the WSE, there still seems to be good opportunities, and I’m trading more actively there right now, even though their interface sucks and they are way behind the curve in making important information available to traders. Nonetheless, there are some good companies there.

As part of my recent rental of space in Second Life, I ended up using a product from Apez (APZ). APZ has only been trading for a month and wasn’t on my initial screen of stocks. They talk about being one of the largest banks in Second Life, and that makes me a little nervous. I’m not sold on banking as a great business area in Second Life.

On the other hand, when I rented my space in Second Life, I used Apez’ Auto-Lease, and I was very impressed. I think the Auto-Lease tool they provide has a good future in where I hope Second Life is heading. I haven’t looked closely at APZ’ financial, so I’m not going to come out and list it as a strong buy yet, but I do think it is worth looking at.

Then, there are the fun and games over on the Virtual Stock Exchange (VSTEX). For stocks still listed there, two of the three have the same interim CEO, who is having problems paying his bills, and the third is MIA. I had only put fifty Linden in VSTEX when they opened, and did test trades with Atlas Venture Capital (AVC) and Countless Galaxies (CGI). Both are halted and I had planned on simply writing them off as bad trades.

However, my small investment in CGI earned me a spot in the CGI Shareholders group and I’ve been chatting with other shareholders and will attend their meeting this evening. I will write about that in a later post.