Using Rush Jobs leads me to better profits.

Push Industries hauls items for third parties around Eve (similar to Red Frog).  Push Industries has two types of fee: a normal rate or a Rush Job rate.

Below, i will demonstrate why paying 20.8m ISK for the Rush Job to haul items from Jita to Dodixie is better than paying 5.8m ISK normal rate to haul the same items from Jita to Dodixie.

Consider the scenario.  I have bought 400m ISK of items from Jita, i believe i can make an operating margin of 20% on them when i sell them in Dodixie (i.e. i hope to make total sales of 500m ISK from those items leaving a profit before broker fees and sales taxes of 100m ISK).

I also know it will likely take me 10 days to sell all these items.

I have 3 choices on getting these items from Jita to Dodixie.

1) I can haul them myself - that is the fastest but the least safe but at least all the profits go to me.

2) I can contract the hauling to Push Industries (or anyone else) and pay 5.8m ISK and it will take up to 3 days to get there.  And so i keep 94m ISK of the profits before broker fees and sales taxes.

3) I can contract the hauling to Push Industries and pay a premium to get it there in less than 24 hours (often in less than 5).  In this case i would pay 20.8m ISK and so keep 79m ISK of the profits before broker fees and sales taxes.

Now, add in one key point - making ISK is a function of 3 things: the profit margin on each sale; how often you sell these items; and how much capital you put into your business.  Essentially, profit over time is the profit margin made on sales x speed of sale x capital.  And what we want to do is optimise all three parts of that nice equation.


Lets assume i don't haul them myself - takes time that i would rather be devoting somewhere else and over time i will be ganked.

So, lets look at what happens here under the second and third options (and for this example lets ignore broker fees and sales taxes):


Assume i use the normal hual rate:

on day 0 i buy the 400m ISK of items from Jita.

By paying the normal hauling rate of 5.8m ISK i get them to Dodixie on day 3 and put them up for sale for 500m ISK.  By day 13 (3+10) i am sold out, making sales of 500m ISK, and so buy them again from Jita for 400m ISK.  I again pay the normal rate of 5.8m ISK to get them to Dodixie on day 16 (13+3) and put them up for sale for 500m ISK.  By day 26 (16+10) i am sold out, making sales of 500m ISK, and so buy them again from Jita for 400m ISK.  I again pay the normal rate of 5.8m ISK to get them to Dodixie on day 29 and by day 39 i am sold out, making sales of 500m ISK.

in all, it took me 39 days to make sales of 500x3 = 1,500, incur buying costs of 400x3 = 1,200 leaving profits of 300m ISK from which i paid hauling fees of 5.8x3 = 17.4m ISK leaving me profits of 282.6m ISK.


and now lets assume i use Rush Jobs instead:

on day 0 i buy the 400m ISK of items from Jita.

By paying the Rush Job hauling rate of 20.8m ISK i get them to Dodixie on day 0 and put them up for sale for 500m ISK.  By day 10 (0+10) i am sold out, making sales of 500m ISK, and so buy them again from Jita for 400m ISK.  I again pay the Rush Job rate of 20.8m ISK to get them to Dodixie on day 10 (10+0) and put them up for sale for 500m ISK.  By day 20 (10+10) i am sold out, making sales of 500m ISK, and so buy them again from Jita for 400m ISK.  I again pay the Rush Job rate of 20.8m ISK to get them to Dodixie on day 20 (20+0) and by day 30 i am sold out, making sales of 500m ISK.  I again buy the items for 400m ISK from Jita, pay the Rush Job rate of 20.8m ISK to get them to Dodixie and put them up for sale on day 30 (30+0) in Dodixie.  By day 40 i have sold them all making sales of 500m ISK.

in all, it took me 40 days to make sales of 500x4 = 2,000, incur buying costs of 400x4 = 1,600 leaving profits of 400m ISK from which i paid hauling fees of 20.8x4 = 83.2m ISK leaving me profits of 316.8m ISK.

. . . . . and these things scale very nicely.  If instead of buying 400m ISK from Jita i was buying 2bn ISK of items to sell at 2.5bn at Dodixie, the normal hauling rate would be 11.5m ISK a time vs the Rush Job rate of 26.5m ISK.  Running through the above example with these new numbers means the Rush Job option would make profits of 1.9bn ISK vs the Normal Hauling rate of 1.5bn ISK.


In all, the Rush Jobs have ensured i get my items on sale very quickly and so improved my [speed of sale] which has resulted in me making more profit.

A rule forgotten, a lesson learned

When i started in my Eve businesses i had a golden rule: never haul cargo over 100m ISK.  The idea here is that anything over 100m ISK made a me a potential target.

Well, as my manufacturing business got up and running i became lazy and was happily hauling 2bn ISK of raw materials out of Jita to my manufacturing facilities.

Until i got caught and killed by a 80m ISK Tornado at the beginning of December (2013).  Fortunately for me i only had 700m ISK in my cargo that time (i was lucky).

So, lesson learned.

I have now skilled up a tanked Nereus and made an instant undock bookmark, several instant undock bookmarks infact.

Thank you to ABM Rambo for the advice (and taking the time to enlighten me).

New Page up on the Blog: Useful Videos

I have added a new page to my blog which keeps a list of youtube videos that i have found helpful in teaching me how to make ISK in Eve Online.

Please feel free to suggest additional videos that you also have found helpful.

Below is a copy of the page as it is currently set up:


The links below are to youtube videos that I have found helpful in my quest to make ISK.


Trading

Draze Swift Products has a good long 1hr 20mins video on station trading in his Eve online Videos in this play list.

A good Station Trading video from TubravTV

Three trading videos from Caleb Ayrania in this play list.



Manufacturing

Pretty much all Eve online videos by andrewthered1 in this play list.

A manufacturing video from delonewolf

A Tech 2 manufacturing guide from speedytuning1 and some further manufacturing videos in his playlist



General business / industrial activities

A 20 minutes video by delonewolf talking about how he made his ISK

A general ISK making video by KensCrazyGaming on how he makes his ISK

In amongst all these videos, there are some good ISK making videos from SeamusDonohueEVE

A very good set of ISK making videos in the form of presentations from krill sinqlaison in this play list

Making Instant undock bookmarks

There are some good youtube videos on this:

A good 10 minute easy watch from Cubehamster on undocking and docking

As an alternative, here is a video that looks at how gankers can counter instant undocking from Ureldor

An interesting trade in the starter area.

Whilst doing the beginner missions for my alt that i placed in Rens i noticed the selling price of Civilian Afterburners was c700k ISK and the buying price was c250k ISK.

The manufacturing price of a Civilian Afterburner is practically nil (a few Tritanium).

The volumes going through are high.

What appears to be happening here is that instead of spending time manufacturing the Civilian Afterburners (takes 8 minutes for two but there is often a queue to get a manufacturing slot) players can buy them off the market and so complete the mission almost instantly.  And there are other players who are willing to take advantage of this situation and put highly priced Civilian Afterburners on the market to sell and perhaps others who are placing buy orders to flip.

The key point here is that the mission agent only gives you a Blueprint Copy (BPC) that can only produce 2 Civilian Afterburners you need to complete the mission before it is used up.

What i can't readily work out is how this is done.  I am guessing either alts are logged on, do the mission, manufacture the items and then just sell them without completing the mission.  Or the mission is started, items manufactured but then the mission is failed so that the agent gives another BPC and so on.

A nice trade for a beginner though.

How i use Eve-Central to find new items to sell

Right when i started i needed to find items to sell - and i did not know much about Eve let alone what items were in demand or not.  In fact, to this day i don't really know too much about the wider side of Eve compared to other blogs that i read.

Hence, to get started i used Eve-Central.  And this is how i doubled my profits each cycle to begin with.

At its simplest, Eve-Central displays all the known buy and sell prices and volumes for any item.  It sources its data from players that upload the prices / volumes as they browse the market.  And that is the key point, the data is only as complete and timely as the source players browse the market.  Any player can be a source, you just download a small piece of software.

For our purposes, what that means is that Jita prices are very complete and up to date given most players will be in Jita browsing the market.  The other trade hubs would also be ok (perhaps not as complete or up to date) and then things start to deteriorate as you go further out.

So, when looking for items to buy from sell orders in Jita to sell in Dodixie then Eve-Central does a pretty good job and below is how i go about it (and lets assume i have that 4m ISK to spend - this process that works at 4m ISK will still work well at 62bn ISK):

Firstly, make sure you alt is in the hub you want to sell into (for me, that is Dodixie) - i will need to be checking the Dodixie market to make sure items sell in a reasonable time and the prices are fair.

The first step is really easy.

Open Eve-Central >>> Press the "Trade Finder" button as shown below:

This will bring up another page called "Trade Tools", the bottom tool is the "System and Region Price Comparison Tool", fill it out as shown below and then press "Compare!":

What this will do is to compare the selling price of every known item in Jita to every known item in Dodixie and then to rank them all by the difference, starting with the highest difference first.

And now we can get to work.

There are two ways to go from here, copy it all onto a spreadsheet to analyse or merely use the webpage as it stands.  For now, we will use the webpage as it stands.

My golden rule of trading is to buy low to sell fair.  In other words, buy at a price in one market that is lower than the fair price in the market you are selling in.  That will keep you out of the way of scams.  Buying very high in one region to sell to a very very high price in another region is probably a scam and you will be left holding an over priced item and unable to sell it!

So, on the page you are on which has a list of items comparing the selling price in Dodixie to the selling prie in Jita - we are looking for items that cost under 1m ISK and have profits of at least 200k ISK (to be honest, at that level we should be able to buy for 1m ISK and sell for at least 1.5m ISK).

The best hunting ground is Blueprints and Implants for now.

So, do a search for Blueprint on the web page (tools >>> find) or (ctrl+f) and run through the first few which will be blueprints costing millions until you get to the ones you can afford to buy and which make a good profit.

The first one i came to was a Large Remote Repair Augmentor I Blueprint which i can buy in Jita for 1.5m and sell in Dodixie for 3.3m.  So, i checked the Dodixie data in the Eve game as shown below.  Yes, there are sell orders in Dodixie for 3.3m BUT there is no volume - hence, i will not be doing that trade!

In fact, making the volume check the first check often speeds things up.  I want an item that sells at least 1 every two days.

I continue to run through all the Blueprints on the page and soon i come to what is the jackpot (at least when you capital is 4m ISK!).

The Medium Trimark Armor Pump I Blueprint can be bought from Jita for 900k ISK and sold in Dodixie for 2.6m ISK.  The sell orders check out in Dodixie when i look in game, and there is good volume too!

So, i would be buying one of these from my 4m ISK pot.

And i continue going through the Blueprints:

Several false alarms latter i come across the Inferno Heavy Missile Blueprint which i can buy in Jita for 800k ISK (its a round number so looks like a NPC seller) and i can sell in Dodixie for 1.8m ISK, and the volume is good!  So, another item to buy.

The 125mm Railgun I Blueprint can be bought from Jita for 90k ISK and sold in Dodixie for 900k ISK, and sells 0 to 2 a day.  That looks good, i will buy 2 of those (very small outlay for a good profit).

The Mjolnir Heavy Assault Missile Blueprint can be bought from Jita for 600k ISK (round number so likely a NPC seller) and sold in Dodixie for 1.4m ISK, volume of sales is 1 every two days.  That is ok for me, i will buy one of those.

The Nova Heavy Missile Blueprint can be bought from Jita for 700k ISK (looks like a NPC seller again) and sold in Dodixie for 1.3m ISK, volume of sales is 1 every two days.  Again, good for me so i will buy one.

In all, that is 3.2m ISK to spend in Jita over 5 different items to make sales of 8.9m ISK giving me profits of 5.7m ISK before broker fees and sales taxes

I will have to fly there to buy them in Jita and fly back . . . . . . . with 3.2m ISK in my small cheap fast ship i suspect i could do that on autopilot.

And this process i still use to find individual items costing 1bn in Jita to sell for 1.3bn in Dodixie.  In otherwords, this process is scalable.

Get the process right and the ISK should follow!

Some ideas for those wanting to start trading

I have had several requests on how to get started in trading.  Below are my views and a worked example (items to buy and sell) of how i would start.


Start small: it is no use ploughing in 40bn ISK if you don't know what to do.

Personally, if i knew nothing about making ISK from trading i would start with 4m ISK and see how that goes - learn the basics at 4m and that still works at 62bn ISK.  Handily, 4m ISK is also what you should come away with from the starter missions - so this applies to new players as well.  It also limits your initial sell orders to 5 or 6 - and so your time spent updating is low which leaves more time to learn from the experience.

Furthermore, the big traders and the 0.01 people don't mess around to make profits of 600k ISK a sale, it is just way too small for them - hence, you can learn your trading lessons without these people operating in your markets.


Have a dedicated trading alt: trying to PVP/PVE and then having to come back to Jita etc to trade is not really going to work.  Hence, you would be best served by setting up a dedicated alt to trade.  Ideally, you will need 2 dedicated trading alts eventually - one to do the buying in Jita and one to post the sell orders in the trading hub you choose to sell at.


Do regional trading: buy from sell orders in Jita, haul to another trade hub (say Dodixie) and put the item on the market to sell.

You don't actually need to know too much about the market cycles or even what you are selling to make Regional Trading work.  You just need to be sure that you can sell the item in the chosen trading hub somewhere close to what you put it on at (hint - check out the historical prices to see how they move).

It is perfectly possible to buy from Jita at 600k ISK to sell in Dodixie at 1.2m ISK (almost all pilots, including yourself i suspect, will not make the journey from Dodixie to Jita to save 600k ISK).


Focus on profit margins, not volume: the 0.01 undercutters focus on high volume items.  Hence, you would be best served looking for items that sell in volumes of under 10 a day (ideally under 5).  Don't be put off by that, you can still make very good profits but again without being disturbed by the 0.01 undercutters (i made 19bn last month on that strategy).  Also, the competition in these items is more rational assuming you don't disturb the market too much.  What i mean by "don't disturb the market" is if 4 of an item sell per day then at the most put up 2 of the item to sell, better still 1.  If you stampede on in there with 10 of the item to sell then the other competitors will head for the door fast and so bring down the price.  I find demand does not go up as the price of these types of item falls.


Use Eve-Central: Eve-Central is very accurate in getting the prices at Jita.  See my post on using Eve-Central on how this works.  Use it to find ideas on what to sell.  This i call "Research" and always takes the longest time with plenty of false leads followed.



The Worked Example: Below is an example of how i would deploy that initial 4m ISK to buy 5 items from Jita to sell in Dodixie (the giving of the below though may render them invalid - these trades rely on no noticeable increase in supply . . . . . so don't all pile into these at once!):

In all cases, i would buy from sell orders in Jita and put new sell orders up in Dodixie priced just below the current lowest sell order.

. . . . . . all prices as of 1 January 2014.


The Item:

In Jita Inferno Heavy Missile Blueprints are being sold by an NPC for 800k ISK.  They will always be available in Jita for this price.

In Dodixie 1 or 2 a day sell for 2m ISK.


The Trade:

I would buy one at Jita for 800k, haul to Dodixie and put on to sell for 2m (at the lowest priced order).  I would update once a day before i went to bed.  I would expect to make the sale within 3 days.

When i sold it i would reinvest the profits into repeating the trade.

The Item:

In Jita Nova Heavy Missile Blueprints are being sold by an NPC for 700k ISK.  They will always be available in Jita for this price.

In Dodixie 1 or 2 a day sell for 1.4m ISK.


The Trade:

I would buy one at Jita for 700k, haul to Dodixie and put on to sell for 1.4m (at the lowest priced order).  I would update once a day before i went to bed.  I would expect to make the sale within 3 days.

When i sold it i would reinvest the profits into repeating the trade.

The Item:

In Jita Scourge Heavy Missile Blueprints are being sold by an NPC for 750k ISK.  They will always be available in Jita for this price.

In Dodixie 2 or 3 a day sell for 1.2m ISK.


The Trade:

I would buy one at Jita for 750k, haul to Dodixie and put on to sell for 1.2m (at the lowest priced order).  I would update once a day before i went to bed.  I would expect to make the sale within 3 days.

When i sold it i would reinvest the profits into repeating the trade.



The Item:

In Jita Mining Foreman Skillbooks are being sold by other players for 155k ISK.

In Dodixie 20 a day sell for 445k ISK.


The Trade:

I would buy three at Jita for 155k each, haul to Dodixie and put on to sell for 445m (at the lowest priced order).  I would update once a day before i went to bed.  I would expect to make the sale within 3 days - these will be competitive given the high volume.

When i sold it i would reinvest the profits into repeating the trade.



The Item:

In Jita Nova Heavy Assault Missile Blueprints are being sold by an NPC for 600k ISK.  They will always be available in Jita for this price.

In Dodixie 0 or 1 a day sell for 1.6m ISK.


The Trade:

I would buy one at Jita for 600k, haul to Dodixie and put on to sell for 1.6m (at the lowest priced order).  I would update once a day before i went to bed.  I would expect to make the sale within 3 days.

When i sold it i would reinvest the profits into repeating the trade.



The outcome:

All that would cost me 3.3m ISK before broker fees and i would hope to make sales of 7.5m ISK before sales taxes.  Worth holding back that final 700k from the initial 4m to pay broker fees etc.

I would do the hauling myself in a cheap but fast ship (these items take up next to no room - i suspect you could even go on autopilot with 3.3m ISK of cargo!).

in all, profits of 4.2m before broker fees and sales taxes.  Not a bad start!

December Update

My best month ever, again.

As a reminder, i spend 30 to 45 minutes during the weekdays on Eve.  My strategy is to focus on low volume but high margin items that i either manufacture or buy (off sell orders) in Jita to sell in Dodixie / Hek / Rens / Amarr.

Despite being away from Eve for a week or so my wealth increased by 18.8bn ISK to 61.6bn ISK, which is an average of 607m ISK per day - and therefore met one of my goals which was to increase my wealth by the equivalent of a Plex a day.

Once again, i benefited from a player's blunder which in effect gifted me c500m ISK.  The one thing i know about blunders is that i make them also, hence i somewhat expect to be making equally biug blunders along the way!

For those able to devote much more time to Eve, one way of reading this blog is to see how little time is required to generate sufficient ISK to plex your own account.

I have 2 accounts with 6 alts in total.

• One one account: I have a trader at Dodixie and a trader at Hek which sell items that have been hauled there from Jita; and I have a manufacturer in the Lonetrek region that sells items in Jita and sends items to the traders in Dodixie, Hek, Amarr and Rens to sell.

• On the other account: I have a buyer in Jita that is is only there to buy items in Jita to send to the traders in Dodixie, Hek, Amarr and Rens; I have an alt that is skilling up in Invention which currently sits in Amarr to sell the items manufactured by my Lonetrek manufacturer; and i now also have an alt that sits in Rens to also sell the items manufactured by my Lonetrek manufacturer.

All my hauling is done by third parties, namely PushX Industries - the time required to haul items from Jita to my traders in Dodixie and Hek would take up too much time.  Better to let these third parties do the hauling (for a fee, of course) whilst i am offline.  All my hauling is "Rush Jobs" and generally takes no less than 5 hours (often in under an hour) to haul from Jita to my four locations in Dodixie / Hek / Amarr / Rens (which are also the other trade hubs).  On average i pay 20m ISK per haul but it is well worth it given i can get those items bought in Jita onto the market in the other trade hubs very quickly and the hauling costs make up 1 to 3% of my sales price.  Not much given i aim to make 20% margins before all costs (hauling, broker fees, sales taxes).

From January i will be buying 2 Plex a month to finance my two accounts.  Up to now i have only needed to buy 1 Plex per month.  So, 1.2bn ISK per month costs going forwards.

As ever, i sit with too much surplus ISK which needs to be invested.  Current surplus is 16.3bn ISK – it is dead money.  I know two things about that ISK.  Firstly, it will be there tomorrow with no chance of making a profit (or a loss).  Secondly, there is inflation in Eve so in effect it is not keeping up with the cost of living in Eve - in other words, its value to me in the future is lower than its value to me today.  I must invest it . . . . . 

The main driver to my improvement in December i suspect was my manufacturer is now selling its items in Amarr and Rens as well as Dodixie, Hek and Jita - i.e. is now selling in 5 trade hubs instead of 2.  In all that alone contributed additional sales of 4.5bn and i suspect made me profits of 2.2bn.


Dodixie trader: Life remains good for this trader.

Items for sale have risen to 21.7bn ISK from the prior months of 16.4bn ISK.  The inclusion of more expensive items to sell has boosted the value of the sell orders.

I sell manufactured items that my manufacturer makes in Lonetrek, and any item i can find that makes profits of over 5m ISK, has a profit margin of over 20% and is a slow seller.  I.e. ship equipment, implants, ship modifications, a few skillbooks and a few blueprints.

As i did in November, again I neglected the station trading side of this alt given lack of time, hence buy orders have fallen to 1.2bn ISK from 1.3bn ISK.  At present, updating the station trading orders tends not to happen given my daily time constraints.  I may end this side of my business in January.

The alt is currently using 101 of the 141 trading slots.

This alt pays 0.80% broker fees to post an order and a further 0.90% sales tax on a successful sale.  No longer training.

There are no medium term goals for this alt – i suspect i may move out of station trading and continue to seek higher priced items to move form Jita to Dodixie to sell as selling any additional items my manufacturing alt decides to produce.


Hek trader: Life is better now.

Items for sale have risen to 14.2bn ISK from the prior months of 11.3bn ISK.  The inclusion of more expensive items to sell has boosted the value of the sell orders.

Much like the Dodixie trader I sell manufactured items that my manufacturer makes in Lonetrek, and any item i can find that makes profits of over 5m ISK, has a profit margin of over 20% and is a slow seller.  I.e. ship equipment, implants, ship modifications, a few skillbooks and a few blueprints.  Other than the manufacturer items, there are very few common items i sell in Dodixie and Hek.

Following this move i now use 93 of the 129 available sell slots.

Pays 0.80% broker fees to post an order and a further 0.90% sales tax on a successful sale.  No longer training.


Amarr Trader: Has got of to a flying start.

Only really fully started up in mid December and focuses solely on items manufactured by my alt in the Lonetrek region.  However, in the half month that it has been up this alt has made 4.2bn ISK of sales making very good profits (i suspect the profits were c2bn ISK).  Items for sale are 5.1bn ISK.

At present, i have no plans to expand into selling other items - i will stick to selling the items my manufacturer produces.  Amarr, being the second largest trade hub, can be very competitive.

Following this move i now use 29 of the 37 available sell slots.

Pays 1.0% broker fees to post an order and a further 1.5% sales tax on a successful sale.  No longer training.

The main aim of this alt is to train up for Invention, and here the training goes on.


Rens Trader: only just started, literally just before xmas and also focuses solely on items manufactured by my alt in the Lonetrek region.  In the week or so that it has been up this alt has made 374m ISK of sales making very good profits (i suspect the profits were c150m ISK).  Items for sale are 6.7bn ISK.

Rens is a slower trade up so i dont expect to see great things but i would like to see this alt at least make sufficient profits to finance the purchase of a Plex a month.

I have no plans to expand into selling other items - i will stick to selling the items my manufacturer produces.

Following this move i now use 31 of the 37 available sell slots.

Pays 1.0% broker fees to post an order and a further 1.5% sales tax on a successful sale.  No longer training.

Manufacturing alt: This alt does all my manufacturing from the Lonetrek region which is within easy access to Jita.  Not much has changed since November.

This alt sells its items in Jita and contracts to Push Industries to haul items to the traders in Dodixie / Hek / Amarr / Rens to sell.

I have a list of 52 items i focus on to sell, currently selling 27 of them in Jita and 33 in Dodixie, Hek, Amarr and Rens.  The other items that i watch have too low a profitability.

I own 44 blueprints worth over 1bn ISK, most of which have already comfortably paid for themselves.

This alt may have plateaued at 6 to 7bn ISK sales per month for now.  During the month it made sales of 6.2bn (vs 7bn ISK in November) and estimated profits of 3bn ISK (same as November).  It currently has 3.4bn ISK of sell orders and another 1.4bn ISK of items in manufacture.

My expansion into manufacturing has been a great success so far.  I am now training this alt up to manufacture T2 items and i am in the process of manufacturing my first T2 items at present.

And all this takes is 15 minutes update time a day.

The current near term goals is to find other T1 items to sell as well as expanding into T2 items.

The new account:  I started a new account in September which will cost me a plex a month to maintain, i.e. 600m ISK per month at todays prices.

During December i believe it made me profits of 2.2bn and therefore fully able to justify its place.  Largely riding on my Amarr alt but i believe it can consistently make good profits going forwards.


Outlook: January to March are going to be busy times for me in RL, hence i suspect i will be back to making 7bn ISK per month.


Current Wealth:

Expected business purchases in the next 30 days

• Plex x2 = 1.2bn 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.