Stalk Market

The Stalk Market refers to the system of buying and selling turnips in the. In the Stalk Market, players can buy and sell turnips in order to turn a profit, based on its fluctuating value as determined by the town store. The name is a pun on the real-life equivalent known as the stock market.

Buying turnips
Turnips can be bought from Joan prior to, or Daisy Mae in , during Sunday mornings, before 12 PM. They will sell turnips at some price between 90 to 110 each, but will only sell them in batches of ten. They will only last for a single week, turning into spoiled turnips by the following Sunday which have no value at all. Any turnips at a player's town will spoil if they choose to time travel forwards (outside of their current week) or backwards.

In and, the player could only buy a maximum of 990 Turnips at a time. This limit is dropped in subsequent titles, where the player is only limited to how many they can afford and how many slots they have in their pockets.

Turnip prices
The price of turnips changes per "period" for the entire week. For each day, there are two "periods": morning (before 12 PM) and afternoon (after 12 PM). The player can ask Tom Nook (prior to ), Reese (in ), or Timmy and Tommy (in ) how much they will buy turnips at that particular period. The prices can go from as low as 20 Bells to as high as 660 in a "large spike" pattern.

The prices for a particular week follow a specific pattern. In addition, the pattern for the current week may be influenced partly by last week's pattern.

Decreasing pattern
Prices start with below 100 Bells on Monday morning, and will continue to decrease bit by bit after that. The player has to sell their turnips on a different town to turn a profit.

Small-spike pattern
Prices start by decreasing until it gets interrupted. The week's highest price will be three periods after that. For instance, if the interruption was reported in a Tuesday afternoon, the peak will occur in Thursday morning. The peak will always be between 150 and 220 Bells. The prices will decrease after this peak.

It is possible for the price to decrease a bit at the first or second period following the interruption. It is also possible for the interruption to occur on a Monday morning: in that case, the peak will occur at a Tuesday afternoon.

Large-spike pattern
This pattern is similar to the small-spike one, but the week's highest price will be two periods after the interruption. For instance, if the interruption was reported in a Thursday afternoon, the peak will occur in Friday afternoon. The pattern is characterized by its really large peak which can range between 200 and 660 Bells. The prices will decrease after this peak.

Random pattern
Prices will be completely at random, but will not go above 150 Bells.