March Economic Report - a review

The monthly Economic Report for March is out.

In summary: Activity is up, Trading is down


Overall

General activity was higher in March as seen by 11% higher Bounty Prizes, 7% higher Mining and 6% higher Production but Trading activity was down by 14%.  Worth noting that there are 2 more days in March vs February, so we would expect to see everything be about 7% bigger.

Trading fell in all major Trade Hubs by about 15% (except the Hek which fell 8% - more on Hek later).  We can see this also in the 15% fall in Transaction Tax to 8.3 trillion ISK and 19% fall in Brokers Fees to 4.8 trillion.  I suspect that is entirely down to Skill Point trading which burst onto the scene in February and lessened during March.

The amount of ISK sitting in players and corporation wallets rose from 949 trillion to 972 trillion - which was a 33.6 trillion inflow offset by 10.3 trillion leaving the game (players leaving).  There is a decent chance we get to over a quadrillion by the end of March.

The overall numbers to keep everything in perspective for March, all in Trillions: Mining rose 7% to 25.2; Destruction rose 5% to 34.7; Trade fell 14% to 843.0; Production rose 6% to 108.5.


Items of note from Regional Activity

Trade

		Trillions
1	The Forge	595.8
2	Domain	97.8
3	Sinq Laison	35.6
4	Heimatar	19.1
5	Lonetrek	14.8
6	Metropolis	14.4
7	Essence	6.3
8	The Citadel	4.8
9	Providence	4.7
10	Tash-Murkon	4.0

No big ranking changes from February.  Business as normal really, Trade Hubs dominating, just at lower levels of ISK.

Perhaps worth noting that Lonetrek (a region next to The Forge) moved higher than Metropolis (Hek) - worth watching that.  I am starting to suspect that Hek may be losing its position as a major Trade Hub.

As a reminder to new players, the main 5 Trade Hubs in the order we know: The Forge (i.e. Jita); Domain (i.e. Amarr); Sinq Laison (i.e. Dodixie); Heimatar (i.e. Rens); Metropolis (i.e. Hek).

In the next 5: the expected Essence and Tash-Murkon are there, known secondary trade hubs.  But also Lonetrek and Citadel (both Regions that are one jump out of Jita) and Providence (null sec space that borders several highsec Regions: Domain / Tash-Murkon / Devoid / Derelik).

The dominance of The Forge reigns supreme though - Jita shows no sign of losing its dominance.  It would be interesting to see how many players have never left the station in the last 3 months!


Production

		Trillions
1	The Forge	19.2
2	Lonetrek	13.0
3	The Citadel	12.3
4	Domain	7.2
5	Sinq Laison	4.6
6	Deklein	4.0
7	Providence	3.3
8	Geminate	2.3
9	Vale of the Silent	2.2
10	Metropolis	2.2

In terms of Production The Forge is top slot - makes sense, many people will produce near where they buy the raw materials and/or intend to sell.  I suspect Lonetrek and The Citadel benefit from being next to The Forge and so less jumps to transport raw materials from Jita or produced items to Jita.

Noteworthy that Deklein (home of the CFC) saw a rise in Production from 3.2 trillion in February to 4.0 trillion in March, became the largest non-high sec producer.  I guess gearing up for war or replacing lost assets.

Metropolis (Hek) in danger of falling out of the top 10 - another warning sign for Hek.


Mining

		Trillions
1	The Forge	1.7
2	Lonetrek	1.3
3	Domain	1.2
4	Providence	1.1
5	Deklein	1.0
6	Metropolis	1.0
7	Malpais	0.9
8	Cobalt Edge	0.9
9	Everyshore	0.9
10	Oasa	0.8

Nothing of note in the mining - Oasa and Cobalt Edge are new top 10s, displacing Tash-Murkon and The Kalevala Expanse.

The Forge and Domain at the top given being major Trade Hubs - so people mining near where they intend to sell and Lonetrek being next to The Forge and itself a major production Region.

I guess Providence is up there given it is nullsec space that is very connected to several High Sec Regions.

Destruction

		Trillions
1	The Citadel	2.5
2	The Forge	2.2
3	Lonetrek	2.2
4	Domain	1.4
5	Tribute	1.3
6	Black Rise	1.3
7	Vale of the Silent	1.2
8	Querious	1.2
9	Metropolis	1.1
10	Providence	1.1

Vale of the Silent is new in Destruction top 10.  No surprises there given the battle reported upon.

Otherwise, at the top of the table we see that Destruction follows Trade - for that, read ganking.

For The Forge, during March there was 786 trillion ISK of goods imported into the Region and 671 trillion ISK of goods exported.  Out of all that, a mere 2.5 trillion was destroyed.  A drop in the ocean really, only 0.2% of all traffic value.  Though annoying if you happen to be amongst the drop.

In fact, all the major Trade Hubs don't see more than 0.2% of their import+export traffic destroyed in March (or February).  Ganking is clearly there but just not the threat it is made out to be.


Vale of the Silent

The numbers of a war:

• Notable that Vale of the Silent saw 242 trillion of exports out of the region vs 94 trillion exports in February.  Someone was moving stuff out as quick as you like!
• Destruction value doubled from 674 billion to 1.2 trillion.
• Mining halved from 637 billion ISK to 307 billion.
• Trade fell 23% to 2.2 trillion ISK.

I guess that is what a war looks like.  People leaving, trading falling, mining falling, destruction rising.


Items of note in the Sinks and Faucets

Buying Skill books fell from 13.6 trillion to 9.8 trillion, a massive fall of 28%.  In part i suspect that is a related fall off in Skill Trading from February.

Net insurance payments (payments to players less premiums paid to NPCs) rose by a massive 21% to 3.4 trillion ISK.  We would expect rising net payments given the 11% rise in Bounty Payments but this also smells of additional destruction.  However, the Destruction values only rose by 5% - which indicates that a lot more of the ships destroyed were insured in March.

The NPC Commodity market generated a net ISK inflow into the economy of 17.7 trillion in February and 19.9 trillion in March.  Strip this out (which is essentially buying from one NPC and shipping to sell to another NPC) and we would have had a much lower ISK inflow to the Eve economy in both February and March!  In fact, if CCP wanted to reduce the ISK coming into the game to almost nothing then getting rid of this faucet would be a good start.

On the Sinks and Faucets data there is a Sink called "Other".  Not sure what it is but in February it had an ISK inflow of 13.7 trillion and an ISK outflow of 47.4 trillion vs March inflow of 15.3 trillion and an outflow of 51.1 trillion . . . . i am guessing it is the sum of odds and ends.

Project Discovery generated 340 billion of ISK in March.


Items of note in the Money Supply

The greatest inflow of ISK into the game as a % of the prior day's ISK was on 17 October 2014 when 4.9 trillion ISK came into the game (=0.66% of the prior day's ISK in the game).  And indeed 18 October 2014 was the third largest day with 4.1 trillion ISK coming into the game.  Not sure why this would be: Plex went over 800m though that itself would not cause ISK to flow into the game; may also relate to SOMER Blink reimbursing prior deposits (see paragraph below).

The greatest outflow of ISK from the game occured on 20 August 2014 when a massive 32.7 trillion ISK left the game (=4.3% of the prior day's ISK in the game).  Most likely to do with the banning of SOMER Blink from the game on that day.  To put this in perspective, the next largest outflow of ISK was on 8 January 2016 when 4.8 trillion left the game (=0.52% of the prior day's ISK in the game) - again, most likely due to a banning event: The Latest IWANTISK Ban Wave.  Seems at least to be a pattern to the major outflow days = banning days.


Items of note in Imports and Exports

As we would expect the major 5 Trade Hubs and the Regions next to them see the greatest Imports and Exports.  No surprise there, all traffic heading for Jita / Amarr / Dodixie / Hek / Rens.

Looking for some notable items:

• As noted above, Vale of the Silent saw a sharp rise in exports in March
• Branch saw a big rise in both imports and Exports.  If i follow the rise in Imports and Exports from connecting Regions then the trail would suggest these imports and exports were coming and going from Venal (not Deklein or Tenal) which in turn looks like it came from Tribute (not Perrigen Falls).  From there it was either imported and exported to Vale of the Silent of Lonetrek (and so onto The Forge).
• Looking closer at Branch - mining rose by 26%; Destruction rose by 33%; Trading rose by 15%; and Production rose by 21%.  Looks like someone is setting up in Branch (which is right next to Deklein).