June 2014 Update

As i now becoming quite common - I was away from Eve for over half the month again.  However, my wealth increased by 8.7bn ISK to 121.3bn ISK, which is an average of 279m ISK per day.  I had expected nearer 5bn - so not a bad result.

This month my holding in Plex generated 1.9bn of the 8.7bn growth in my wealth.  My Plex holding is 72 Plex worth 54.4bn.

Real life commitments at work has kept February through to June slow -having hoped July would be free i will now be on overseas business trips four times.

During these months i only sold the T1 items i manufacture and only traded other items where i made at least 15m ISK profits and 20% margins.

Going forwards that is changing to focusing solely on the T1 items i manufacture and only selling items that sell for over 100m ISK with 20% margins.

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.

I don't have any standings of note - for this trading strategy saving a percent here or there is not key.  To reduce my costs of trading i have trained all my alts that post sell orders to Broker 4 and Accounting 4.

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.  This manufacturer also doubles up as my buyer in Jita.

• On the other account: I have an alt that is getting into Planetary Interaction; 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 more 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 25m ISK per haul (so 100m ISK if i want to haul to all 4 trade hubs in one time) 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).  I wrote a post on Rush Jobs which details why it is more profitable paying up.

I am now buying 1 Plex a month to finance my two accounts.  So, 750m ISK per month costs going forwards.  I do occasionally benefit from some kind soul upgrading their account having used the link to the right >>>>>>>>>


Plex: As of the end of June i held 72 Plex at a cost of 49.2bn ISK which at 756m per Plex was then worth 54.4bn ISK.  In other words, my holding in Plex has made me 5.2bn since i started investing in Plex at the end of February.

My biggest headache was that i was sitting on too much ISK which was not invested in the market.  I had up to 35bn ISK in my wallet which was dead money.  At most i need to hold 10bn ISK to finance my business, the other 25bn or so is surplus to requirements.

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.

So far, Plex is the best item i can find that (in the medium to long term) is the best asset to keep up with inflation in Eve.

However, during June i did not purchase additional Plex given i want to expand my trading business into higher value items and so will perhaps need the surplus ISK this month.

Dodixie trader: Life remains good and consistent

Items for sale fell to 14.3bn from 17.8bn which reflects me selling down my holdings in items valued below 100m ISK without yet replacing them with items valued at over 100m ISK.

I sell T1 manufactured items that my manufacturer makes in Lonetrek, and going forwards any other item that sells for over 100m ISK and makes a 20% profit margin.

This alt pays 0.80% broker fees to post an order and a further 0.90% sales tax on a successful sale.

There are no medium term goals for this alt – for now i will focus on the manufactured items from my alt in Lonetrek and selling expensive items hauled from Jita.

Training - this alt is training for missions.  Currently doing Level 4 missions.


Hek trader: Life remains good and consistent

Items for sale were flat at 15bn ISK.

I sell T1 manufactured items that my manufacturer makes in Lonetrek, and going forwards any other item that sells for over 100m ISK and makes a 20% profit margin.  Other than the manufactured items, there are very few common items i sell in Dodixie and Hek.

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: Back down to normal

Only really fully started up in mid December and focuses solely on items manufactured by my alt in the Lonetrek region.  During June this alt's sales were 6.0bn ISK vs prior months 7.1bn ISK and i suspect the profits were 2.0bn ISK vs prior months 3.0bn ISK.

Items for sale at the month end were flat at 11bn.

Pays 0.75% broker fees to post an order and a further 0.90% sales tax on a successful sale.  During the month i increased Accounting to Level 4 and Broker Relations to Level 5 to reduce those fees / taxes.

The main aim of this alt is to train up for Invention, and here the training goes on.  Needless to say, with being busy in rl this whole invention thing has been on the back burner!


Rens Trader: back also to more normal levels

Started just before xmas and also focuses solely on items manufactured by my alt in the Lonetrek region.  During June this alt made sales of 3.8bn vs prior month of 5.2bn ISK and i suspect profits of 1.7bn ISK vs prior month of 3.0bn.  Items for sale at the month end were flat at 7bn ISK.

Rens is a slower trade up so i did not expect to see great things - but being able to earn enough to buy two Plex per month is no bad thing.

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

Pays 0.8% broker fees to post an order and a further 0.9% sales tax on a successful sale.

No longer in 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 own 44 blueprints worth over 1bn ISK, most of which have already comfortably paid for themselves.

This alt may have plateaued at 6 to 8bn ISK sales per month for now though June was low.  During the month it made sales of 4.2bn (vs 7.3bn ISK in the prior month) and estimated profits of 2.0bn vs prior month of about 3.0bn ISK.  It currently has 9bn of sell orders, similar to May.

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 third T2 item - lets see how it goes but so far T2 items are not as profitable for me as the T1 items.

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.

I have seeded a new market in Lonetrek - lets see how that goes.  It is volatile at present - June sales were 1.0bn with profits of about 0.5bn compared to May of 1.5bn and profits of about 0.7bn ISK.

Planetary Interaction Alt: started training for Planetary Interaction.

This alt used to be my buyer in Jita.  He is now fully skilled for Planetary Interation and i am experimenting with it all for now.

Outlook: July is going to be real busy for me in RL (again!), hence i suspect i will be lucky to make over 5bn.  I have a holiday in the last week of June so it will be interesting to see how much i can make with some more time online.


Current Wealth:

Expected business purchases in the next 30 days

• Plex x1 = 0.75bn 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.