July Update

The last week was slow but overall it has been a good month.

In all my wealth increased by 6.0bn ISK which indicates i make an average of 192m ISK per day.

The main constraint to making ISK is alternating between finding items to sell and time available.

But at present i now have 4.2bn ISK in my wallet.  The only thing i know about that ISK is that it will be there tomorrow.  It has no chance in generating a return in its current form.  It is dead money.  Hence, i need to find a project or investment for this ISK.

However, the full process of updating my orders, buying new items from Jita and setting hauling contracts to get these items to Dodixie and Hek takes a full 45 minutes – and that is as much time as i want to allow for weekdays.  Hence, the answer will be to find higher profit items to sell and drop the lower profit items away.


Trading Strategy: 100% sticking to Regional Trading, selling slow moving but high margin items bought from Jita to sell in Dodixie or Hek.  I never buy something from Jita that i cant make at least a 20% margin on in Dodixie or Hek.  i.e. every 80 ISK purchase in Jita must sell for at least 100 ISK in Dodixie or Hek – and off that, of course, comes sales tax + brokers fees + hauling costs, and then price mark downs as competition lowers their prices . . . . hence why I stick to the 20% margin.

With both my traders i am taking big write-downs at times as i lower my prices on the sub-systems i sell.  Whilst it may make my eyes water i don’t mind this.  The only thing worse than an order that will never sell is ISK in the wallet.  That order may eventually be filled but it is as good as dead money.  Better for me to lower the price, collect the ISK and put that ISK back to work to make a return.

In all, I am finding sub-systems the most competitive and high volume of the items I sell.  The prices can move around a lot.  I suspect in the end I am making lower margins on these sales but they are making a positive contribution to my trading.

 

 

Contract Hauling: I continue to contract to Pushx Industries to haul my items from Jita to Dodixie and Hek, paying them about 45m ISK per day (=1.4bn ISK per month).  I do the Rush Jobs – i.e i pay a c4x premium to get the items shipped in under 24 hours, though they always arrive within 5 hours.  I am quite sure the amount i pay is more than compensated by the faster sales i make.  The strategy of contracting out the hauling remains as sound as ever - it saves me time (at best I would need to be at the keyboard for the Jita to Dodixie and then Dodixie to Hek legs of the haul which would take me at least half an hour; and it is much safer - I don't have the experience / skills in Eve Online to be totally confident on avoiding a gank (Eve parlance for being ambushed) at this stage.

 

 

Dual training: I spent a plex (=520m ISK) to start dual training on my account.  The Hek trader is almost done – quicker than i thought whilst the manufacturing alt is still going strong.  In all, i will keep the manufacturing alt training and leave the Dodixie and Hek traders as they are to earn ISK.

 

 

Dodixie Trader: Normal business.  Does about 3bn profit per month.  Blueprints are now a very small part of the business.  The main items are now sub-systems, ship fittings and implants.  I am finding sub-systems very competitive but lucrative.

 

Currently trader skilled in:

·         Accounting 4 – hence the sales tax is 0.80%

·         Broker Relations 4 – hence the broker fees are 0.90%

·         Retail 5 – which increases the active orders by 8 per level

·         Trade 4 – which increases the active orders by 4 per level

·         Wholesale 5 – which increases the active orders by 16 per level

·         Marketing 4 – i only learned this to allow other skills to be learned

No  longer training – has enough to get along with.  Can post 141 orders of which generally has 100 sell orders active.  Pays 0.80% sales tax and 0.90% broker fees.


Hek Trader: Training is almost complete.

Currently trader skilled in:

·         Accounting 4 – hence the sales tax is 0.80%

·         Broker Relations 4 – hence the broker fees are 0.90%

·         Retail 5 – which increases the active orders by 8 per level

·         Trade 5 – which increases the active orders by 4 per level

·         Wholesale 3 – which increases the active orders by 16 per level

·         Marketing 3 – i only learned this to allow other skills to be learned

Hence, this alt can currently post 113 orders, of which about half are currently in use.

Currently learning Wholesale 4 which will increase this limit to 129 – and i think that will be this character done for now.  Its purpose will be to trade in Hek and attempt to generate c3bn ISK per month profits.

From here, it needs to find more items to sell.  Trading is good at the moment, on some nights can be better than Dodixie.  Definitely a smaller trade hub – but not so much competition either.


Manufacturing alt: Continues to sit in Jita and act as my buyer for the items to be hauled to Dodixie and Hek for sale.

Skills are now:

·         Industry 4 – which gives a 4% reduction in manufacturing time per level and also opens up other skills

·         Production Efficiency 5 – which reduces the materials required by 5% per level

·         Mass Production 4 – which adds a production line capability per level

Currently learning Mass Production 5 which will open up Advanced Production.

Hence, this character can now run 5 production lines at once, will be 6 once Mass Production is learned.

I am continuing to read up on manufacturing and at this stage i suspect i will be going for T2 manufacturing – which, in summary, will mean more training, at least a month from here.


New account: The reading around manufacturing that i have done does indicate that i will need additional characters – either for more manufacturing lines or for Research.

I suspect i will not buy another PLex for Dual Training given my Hek trader is almost levelled up.  Hence, i may instead invest a Plex a month in starting a second account to train up another manufacturing alt.


To do list: Work out how Corporation mechanics work – at the moment it acts as a central collecting point for my ISK and effectively buys the items in Jita for sale in Dodixie and Hek.  I want to see if i can also have the corporation issue hauling contracts even though it does not have an office and hence no corporate hanger.

Work out how to copy the UI from one account to another – when i start my new account one of the alts will eventually sit in Jita as the buyer when the manufacturing alt leaves to become established somewhere else.  Ideally, at that stage, i would like to be able to see the same UI to smooth the buying process.



Current wealth is 11,487,059,666 ISK made up from:

• Items for sale 8,745,430,456 ISK
• less a 20% provision (1,749,086,091) ISK*
• Buy orders 81,000,000 ISK
• Items in storage for sale 244,000,000 ISK
• Items in transit 0 ISK
• ISK in wallets 4,165,715,301 ISK

Expected business purchases in the next 30 days

• Plex 530,000,000 ISK

I don't count assets I use in the course of my business such as ships, fittings etc nor do I add back any expenses such as skills purchased etc.  The wealth I disclose is made up of items that are ISK or are in the process of being converted to ISK.

* I take a 20% provision against the items I am selling.  Eve calculates wealth by adding up the value of the sell orders hence it is possible to increase your wealth by buying an item for 100m ISK and putting a sell order for 120m ISK (in this case your wealth would increase by 20m ISK).  For me, I want my wealth to be calculated at cost until i finally hold it as ISK.  I know that the value of my sell orders will likely fall over time as I update my orders downwards as competition reduces their prices before my items are sold.  Hence the 20% provision is my best guess as to what cost is or at least the maximum reduction I would need to make to my sell orders as a whole before they are sold.