August Update

A slower than expected month.  Wealth increased by 4.4bn ISK to 15.9bn ISK.  Which is an average of 143m ISK per day.  So below July where wealth rose by 6.0bn ISK.

Three main reasons for the slowdown.

·         Firstly i was on less than expected – work is taking over at times.  I can often go 2 or 3 nights without updating orders.  Missing a Thursday night can be a killer I find - seems that people are out buying in force on a Friday ahead of a weekend,

 

·         Secondly, i moved out of the sub-system market which i found mind numbingly competitive and time consuming.  I only have one or two items left to sell.  Whilst it was a bore it did generate a decent return though i often felt that i was selling some items for a zero profit and others for a great profit – depending on how quick the competition was.  I suspect there is a market in there somewhere that meets my criteria, i will just have to be more selective.  This move materially slowed the trading of my Hek trader.

 

·         Thirdly, I started a new account which will cost me 550m ISK per month and i spent a further c400m on implants and skill books for my two chars that are training.  However i look at it though, this third item is an ongoing expense that i need to take into account - hence not really an excuse for a slower month!

One key constraint i have in growing my wealth is too much ISK sitting in my wallet.  it is often over 3bn ISK and it is earning a nil return.  Therefore, I have entered the skillbook market in Hek and Dodixie.  It is a low margin market (c8 to 10% after all costs including hauling costs) but it is a steady income with less competition.  I am building up the ISK investment but so far i have a few billion ISK invested in this market.  so far it looks ok – the low margins and slow sales are offset by the low competition and hence it does not take up much time to maintain.


Dodixie Trader: business as normal really, using about 100 of its 141 active order slots, has about 7.4bn ISK of sell orders active which is up on the 5.5bn in the prior month and mainly driven by the entry into the skillbook market.  The core trading (i.e. non-skillbooks) is holding the 20% operating margin after all costs.  Will need to find new items to sell to replace the sub-system market it has largely exited from.  Pays 0.80% broker fees to post an order and a further 0.90% sales tax on a successful sale.  No longer training.


Hek Trader: now that it has almost completely exited the sub-system market its regional trading has slowed considerably and a key focus is to find new items to sell – infact, without a new market the hope of selling items at a margin over 20% in a meaningful way is low.  Has about 6.8bn ISK invested in sell orders though much of that is in the lower margin skillbook business.  Pays 0.80% broker fees to post an order and a further 0.90% sales tax on a successful sale.  No longer training.


Manufacturing alt:

Just learning the ropes on manufacturing.

Moved out of Jita one jump away to Ikuchi.  I don’t plan on staying at this location but for now it serves its purpose well.

At the moment i am manufacturing  and selling standard industrial transport ships.  Making good margins (over 20%) but low income.  Not really got a feel for how much given it is early days.  Still in the process of designing the spreadsheets.

I often have to make the trip to Jita and back hauling raw materials to undertake the manufacturing – but that is a 5 minute job at most, and low risk given i don’t haul much, certainly under 100m ISK at a time.

Relevant Skills trained:

·         Advanced Mass Production level 4 – allows one extra manufacturing slot per level

·         Industry level 5 – reduces manufacturing time by 4% per level though as importantly is a pre-requisite for learning further skills

·         Mass Production level 5 – allows one extra manufacturing slot per level

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

·         Supply Chain Management level 4 – remote manufacturing control within 20 jumps in a region.  I will aim to get this to level 5 for full region control

·         Industrial Construction level 2 – allows the construction of advanced industrials

·         Capital Ship Construction Level 1 – allows the construction of capital ships

·         Science Level 5 – needed for many other skills

·         Mechanics Level 5 – needed for many other skills

·         Cybernetics level 4 – allows me to plug in implants that speed up the time it takes to learn skills (given this alt will be learning for several months i should have done this right from the start)

Currently training CPU Management level 4 to allow me to start to manufacture some capital ship items

 

 

New account started:  I started a new account which will cost me a plex a month to maintain, i.e. 550m ISK per month at todays prices.  I also used the “buddy invite” system and upgraded the account when i bought the plex.  That gives me 51 days of play time and rewards me with a plex – more details in the linked post.

 

i plan to train this character up in Research skills.  Whilst it is doing this it will be my new buyer in Jita – so he buys the items for the traders to sell in Dodixie and Hek.  As ever, the items are hauled there by Pushx Industries.  Therefore, i copied over all the market quickbar information from the main account to this new account – the details of how i did this can be seen in the linked post.

 

Relevant Skills trained:

·         Science level 5 – needed for many further skills and gives a 5% speed to blueprint copying per skill level

·         Research level 4 - needed for further skills and gives a 5% speed to blueprint manufacturing time research per skill level

·         Scientific Networking level 3 – allows me to run research operations remotely (i.e. not be in the same station)

·         Laboratory Operation level 4 – allows me to run one additional research job per skill level

·         Metallurgy level 3 - needed for further skills and gives a 5% speed to blueprint material efficiency research per skill level

Currently training Scientific Networking level 4

 

 

 

Current wealth is 15,932,443,181 ISK made up from:

Items for sale 14,306,733,258 ISK
less a 20% provision (2,861,346,652) ISK*
Buy orders 117,000,000 ISK
Items in production 29,517,128 ISK
Items in storage for sale 196,500,000 ISK
Items in transit 0 ISK
ISK in wallets 4,144,039,447 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.