Having started to read the Merchant Monarchy blog, notably MoxNix focusing on the Plex market - i thought i would give it a shot also.
This would be a departure from my normal strategy of focusing on low volume / high margin items.
Much like MoxNix, i would be going for volume, using Buy Orders and then putting on any bought Plex as a Sell order, making a low profit margin in the process.
As ever, when i enter a new market i dip my toe in first to test it out.
My strategy is to operate in the regions neighbouring a couple of major Trade Hubs. Plex trading in the Trade Hubs is intense and the margins very thin - however, a jump or two away in another region is much calmer. Margins are not great but the competition is not so intense.
I put on a few Buy orders and then check back a week later to convert any completed Buy order to a Sell order - in other words, i am Station Trading Plex.
In this case, i bought 13 Plex for 10.2bn ISK with my alt in Jita and my alt in Dodixie (both travelling to a neighbouring region to do the trades).
So far i have sold 11 - the regions neighbouring the Forge sold quickest, the regions neighbouring Sinq Laison sold slowest.
In all, sales so far are 9.1bn ISK and Plex for sale that i still hold is 1.6bn ISK which gives me profits of 429m ISK so far (or 39m ISK per Plex) in January.
Not bad but slow. I suspect i will need to deploy more ISK into this. However, the margins are very low - about 4.7%, and that is before i pay the broker fees and sales tax.
Given my broker fees for placing Buy and Sell orders are 0.75% and Sales tax is 0.90% that would indicate a profit margin of 2.5% per sale (=21m per Plex). Assuming a Plex price of 830m then to achieve my aim of making sufficient profits to buy a Plex each month then i need to sell 40 Plex per month.
If i was to assume that was 10 per week and lets say i therefore need to have 10 Buy orders up to stock up for the following week and 10 Sell orders up to sell last weeks Buys then that implies i need 20 Plex worth of Isk investment = 16.6bn ISK to invest in this project.
The good news is that it is very low maintenance. I put Buy orders up and then the following week i convert the completed Buy orders into Sell orders.
Given i don't have any other projects to deploy my surplus ISK into i may stick at this and see if it achieves my golden rule of being able to earn a Plex a month.
In fact, i have just invested 7.8bn in 10 Plex Buy Orders in one region and 3.9bn in 5 Plex Buy Orders in another region to see scale up slightly and see how it goes.
I got really aggressive in the PLEX market this weekend. I bought 63 PLEX on Friday and another 108 on Saturday. 171 in total in 48 hours.
ReplyDeleteThe price has been dropping quickly since I started selling them. I half expected that though it dropped faster than I anticipated. Oh well, there seems to be a fairly reliable cycle involved so I should be able sell them all at decent profits, it'll just take longer than expected.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteBTW, I wouldn't recommend trying to do too much in the PLEX market without getting Accounting V for 0.75% taxes *and standings to lower broker fees below 0.75%.. Sure you can sell 1 or 2 here and there with 2.25% or higher costs but the minute you try to sell more than that, the no-lifers and bots will start undercutting you constantly.
ReplyDeleteMost of my characters are in the 1.5 - 1.75% total combined taxes and fees range with several even lower than that and I still get undercut all the time. The lowest possible taxes and fees would put cost just under 10 mil and many of my competitors are willing to go there to undercut me.
yep - that is for sure. Now that i have my alts all ready to do Planetary Interaction my next task is to get Accounting and Broker Relations to Level 5.
DeleteIts really great post I have some important information on your blog its very helpful for me.
ReplyDeleteLowest Brokerage Trading