Markets picked up again

Since i wrote my post on 11 February commenting on the slow market, within a few days the market really picked up again.

I dont think this will be a great month for me but my sales over the last 2 weeks have been strong.

I was looking like i would only make 4.5bn isk in February which, after paying the 1.2bn for 500 plex to get the account to omega, would not leave me with much.

As i write this now, i will make at least 10bn isk which will more than cover the 1.2bn plex but wont allow me to make my 10bn isk target after paying for the plex.

Of course, i still have two more days but i have to take into account that on the final day i make sure all my market prices are the lowest available which can cost me up to 1bn isk in writedowns.

Looks like i will have to wait for March for my wealth to get to 50bn, from a standing start at the end of August 2020.  To be honest, it has been slower going than i thought.

Much like that post, i don't really have an explanation for either the slowdown or the pickup.

I am all ears for suggestions.

What investors think about Eve Online with Pearl Abyss

Nosy Gamer did a good review on the Pearl Abyss Q4 results which came out on 16 February - so i want redo that review here.

What i want to do is talk about what the financial markets think specifically of Eve Online.

Many of the brokers that write about Pearl Abyss lump all of CCPs products into one line - which makes it harder to see what Eve Online is doing vs the other CCP products (such as Eve Echoes, launching into China etc).

Technically, the revenue expectations for Eve Online were reduced but this reflects the weakening US Dollar rather than anything else.  Eve Online is reported in Korean Won in the Pearl Abyss numbers so we need to remember the currency changes.

For those that do split out Eve Online, the expectations are that Eve Online had a better than expected 2020 (lockdowns helped all games) and then for a gentle decline in revenues over the next few years.

To put this in context, most investors are expecting existing games to see a decline in revenues when we come out of the lockdowns.  The question is how much of a decline.  However, once we have the initial decline, most investors are then expecting existing games to start growing again.

For Eve Online though investors are not expecting a noticeable pull back in 2021 but merely a gentle decline in 2021 and 2022.

This fits in with the narrative investors have about Eve Online - it is a very loyal player base though not really growing.  So merely seeing gentle attrition over time.

Otherwise, Eve Online is barely mentioned when investors talk about Pearl Abyss.  To me, this looks like everyone is assuming that peak revenues have been achieved and the aim is to hold onto these revenues or at least only allow a gentle decline.

It seems that the value in CCP to Pearl Abyss is the new product launches (Eve Echoes Global, Eve Online into China) and more access to the western market rather than growing the current Eve Online.

Other items of note

The Pearl Abyss presentations do mention that 80% of the player base of Eve Online originated from cohorts prior to 2018.  i.e. of the players around at the end of 2017, 80% of them are still around today and therefore the rest of the players today have joined in 2018-2020.

Eve Economy Website updated for January 2021 monthly data

The Eve Economy website has been updated for the January 2021 monthly economic data which was just released by ccp

The site takes the monthly economic data for Eve Online provided by CCP and puts it all together in charts so that we may get a better understanding about the economy of Eve.

The pdf chartbook on the home page has 241 slides covering all the charts:

• Section 1: Daily data from 2012 onwards

• Section 2: Wealth in the Eve Economy

• Section 3: Top level Regional Data

• Section 4: Discrepancy charts - showing that the daily data is not reconciling with the monthly Regional data

• Section 5: Regional data for each region from 2016 onwards

• Section 6: Faucets and Sinks

• Section 7: Discontinued Sinks and Faucets

• Section 8: Economic Indices

• Section 9: Interesting observations

• Section 10: State of PVP

• Section 11: State of PVP by Region

The chart pack looks at each and every region, including regions that have been and gone.

Quick Summary

I will take a closer look in over the next few days but the main items of note i can see are:

1) The large battle data from the end of 2020 is in the January data.  So, this is where we see the almost 200 Titans destroyed.

2) Largest month on record for destruction and only the fifth month on record where destruction exceeded NPC Bounties, and only the sixth month on record where destruction exceeded production.

3) Long term down trend in Trade, Mining and Production continues though each was up on December.

4) Overall ISK coming into the game was around average but overall ISK leaving the game (before counting players leaving or banned) was at record levels of 87 trillion (vs 74 trillion in December)

This was due to an increase in: Merchant Sinks across the range of Transaction Taxes and Broker Listing Fees; Player Sinks due to an increase in Insurance taken out; and the largest individual item was the Structure Module fee which we expected due to the January deadline.

5) NPC Bounties remained at record lows whilst Commodity Sales remained at record highs with Incursion ISK hitting new highs.

6) Hek and Rens are establishing a rising trend in Trade vs Dodixie which remains flat.

youtube channel - The Oz Report

I am always on the look out for youtube, or other media, channels that update frequently and which focus on the business side of Eve Online.

To that end, i recently came across The Oz Report.  It is a weekly, sometimes more frequent, 15 minute review on what the presenter is doing in the Eve markets to make ISK.

Occasionally we get a 45 minute video.

Its different to Eve Talk in that it tends to focus on one part of the market at a time.

What i really like about it is that the presenter goes into good detail about why he is buying or selling or investing in the items in focus.  You don't have to listen far into an episode to realize that he knows what he is talking about and likely has a background in economics or finance.

And what brings this all home is that you see his process in action and therefore you are free to use all or some or none if it, as you choose.

It is also clear that the presenter has a good amount of Eve knowledge and therefore is able to take events within Eve and link them to expected movements of prices to come.

So you are getting the full story - the fundamentals on why the item or group of items look interesting, the chart technicals on why now is a good time to Buy / Sell / Invest and you see the presenter in action making the moves.

Tucked away in his videos are decent length guides on what tools he uses and how and identifying the best trades and more.

Much like the Strange Net videos, for me this is one where i would point players that wanted to learn how to make ISK from the markets to.

I have added it to the links on the right (Eve Trading Youtube Casts).

He also has a Discord channel and Twitch channel, details are on the youtube about page

Markets seem very slow

My current business in Eve is to buy items from Jita Sell Orders and have them couriered to Dodixie and Amarr to put up as Sell Orders.

I take a 25% margin and about 10% of that margin is eaten up by courier costs + Broker Fees + Sales Taxes.

And it works well.

But recently the market is slow

However, the last month of January and the first week or so of February have been very very slow.

At this rate, i will only make 4.5bn isk profits in February which is more than enough to cover the Omega time (i have just bought the 500 Plex tonight) but otherwise will be not much better than my first full month since i restarted in August 2020.

Why?

Some have suggested the war going on has taken pilots away from kitting their own ships to rely on the ships given to them.

Others have suggested a post Christmas slowdown.

I honestly don't know the answer but i look forward to the January and February economic data to see if we can see overall what i am feeling at my level.

Month end update - January 2021

At the end of my fifth full month, my wealth is 38.2bn ISK after paying 1.3bn to upgrade Omega for another 30 days.  My wealth increased by 10.3bn in January.

Not as good as i hoped.  January started strongly on the back of a good December but really slowed in the final two weeks.

And so far, February has crawled to a halt.

Review of the January aims

1) Plex the account - done

2) Increase sales in Dodixie (- this may be tough) - missed

3) Increase sales in Amarr - done

4) Expand further into Invention - missed

5) Investigate reducing 'costs of sale' - missed

Onwards to the next aim

This time in Eve, i don't want to purely focus on trading by having characters in each trading hub.  I want to experience as many of the isk making ventures in Eve that i reasonably can.

So, the aim with trading is to get to 10bn monthly income after buying the Plex to extend the Omega account.

That was achieved in December and again in January.  Not sure if it is sustainable but i will take it as a sign to advance onto another venture.

Invention

More posts to come but i have decided to try my hand at invention - i decided last month but to be honest i got nowhere in January.

I need to look into it more to work out where to start.  I like the look of it: low click rate; looks like an inefficient market; so if it works out it would really be a low time consumption source of income - not quite passive, but close.

Lets see how it goes.

Reminder of my Current Business.

I operate with one account with three alts.

The main alt is a seller in Dodixie and the other alt is a seller in Amarr, two of the main trade hubs in Eve Online.

The third alt sits in Jita and buys from Sell Orders, has these items couriered to the alts in Dodixie and Amarr who then put them onto these markets for sale.

I focus on slow moving but high margin items.

For this side of my business, lets call it Merchanting, i want to generate income of 10bn isk per month after paying to Plex my account.

Analysis of Trading Profits

Explaining the journey of sales of 70.6bn to the increase in wealth of 10.3bn . . . . . 

In all, i made sales of 70.6bn isk (vs 78.3bn in December) which created income of 11.6bn (1.3bn was used to buy Plex, 11.0bn was invested back into the market) vs 13.4bn in December.

Hence, sales fell 10% overall.

Dodixie sales were 42.4bn (vs 53.7bn in December) whilst Amarr sales were 28.2bn (vs 24.6bn in December).

So, it was the 21% sales decline in Dodixie that caused my profits to fall where as Amarr grew sales by 15%.

Purchases of items from Jita cost 50.1bn isk (vs 55.8bn in December), so my item margin was 29.0% ((70.6-50.1)/70.6) vs 28.8% in December.  Respectably above the 25% item margin target but down on the elevated 32.2% in November.

Of course, i need to take a whole series of costs off before i get to my Business profits:

Courier Fees: i aim to pay 2% of sales value to the Courier = 2% x 70.6 = 1.4bn

Sales tax cost me 2.0bn ISk (=2.8% of sales), as expected given i am Level 4 Accounting Skill on both characters.

Broker Fees costs me 5.4bn (=7.7% of sales).  Now, i can break this down into the initial listing fee of 3.78% (because i am Level 4 Broker Relations on both characters) and therefore the rest is the cost of changing the price which is 1.14% a shot.

So, i know the listing fee = 3.78% x 70.6 = 2.7bn and therefore the price change fee is 2.7bn (5.4 - 2.7). This 2.7bn is 3.9% of sales.  This is higher than December and reflects a more competitive environment in January which meant i had to change my prices more often.

This takes my 'Business Profits' to 11.6bn isk for January vs 13.4bn in December.  This is what 45 minutes a day in January gave me.

So, the post-tax margin is 29.0% - 2.0% - 2.8% - 3.8% - 3.9% = 16.5% (=11.6/78.3).

Fees and Taxes take 12.5% off my margins (2.0+2.8+3.8+3.9).  That is a big hit.  I can take action to reduce this which i may investigate in the medium term (needless to say, i did not get round to investigating this in January).

16.5% is respectable, i would normally aim to get a respectable 13 to 15%.  i can improve on it if i train Accounting and Broker Relations  / Advanced Broker Relations to level 5 . . . . . which is on the "to do" list . . . . .and which i have started now on my Dodixie character.

And then from those 'Business Profits' i buy Plex for 1.3bn isk to extend the Omega by 30 days.

That, therefore, is the roadmap from making 70.6bn of sales and seeing my wealth increase by 10.3bn as a result.

Dodixie Seller character

This remains my main character and is the biggest seller.

The skills relevant to Trading that i have are (made three change):

Accounting: Level 4; means i am charged 2.80% of the sales price on completed sale vs the normal 5%

Broker Relations: Level 4; means i am charged 3.78% to list an item for sale

Advanced Broker Relations: Level 5; means i can reduce the cost of changing the price of items i already have for sale. I decided by train this rather than go all for Plex.  With no skill i would be charged 1.89% to change every price.  Level 5 has brought this down to 0.94%.

Trade: Level 5; increases the number of items i can list for sale by 4 per level.

Retail: Level 5; increases the number of items i can list for sale by 8 per level

Wholesale: Level 5 (increased by two levels in January); increases the number of items i can list by 16 per level

Marketing: Level 3 (increased by one level in January); this allows me to set up Sell Orders in stations other than the one i am in; it also allowed me to look to increase my Contracting skills which i will need to sell my BPO copies from invention

Given the level 5 Trade, level 5 Retail and level 5 wholesale, i am able to post 145 items for sale (5 + (5x4) + (5x8) + (5x16)).  With no Trading skills you can post up to 5 sell orders

As i write this i am using 116 sales slots up.

Items i am selling in Dodixie (and Amarr)

I sell blueprints, skill books and ship equipment.  There is still no change here.

But, the markets are slowing down so i have had to move back to selling items i buy from Jita for 10m to sell for 35m.

For blueprints and skill books i focus on items that are not seeded in Dodixie (or Amarr for the Amarr seller).  It is a nice source of sales, varying from 100m to a few billion on a really good day - players will pay up to avoid travelling to Jita to save isk to buy that blueprint or skillbook.

Ship equipment makes up the rest, typically it is the same items each time though i find i make a few sales then need to let that item rest and the price reset upwards before i revisit.

Rigidly sticking to the 25% margin target.  I have to given courier fees and taxes take a whopping 12% of that to leave me with 13%.  This is the one line i can't really cross.  If i took the margin down to 20% then after costs i am looking at 8% profits which leaves no room to change prices too often!

Similar story in Amarr, some items are the same but the main groups are all the same: blueprints, skill books and ship equipment

Amarr Seller character

Started in November and has grown very quickly.  I gave my initial views in a prior post.

The skills relevant to Trading that i have are:

Accounting: Level 4; means i am charged 2.80% of the sales price on completed sale vs the normal 5%

Broker Relations: Level 4; means i am charged 3.78% to list an item for sale

Advanced Broker Relations: Level 4; means i can reduce the cost of changing the price of items i already have for sale.th no skill i would be charged 1.89% to change every price.  Level 4 has brought this down to 1.1%.

Trade: Level 4; increases the number of items i can list for sale by 4 per level.

Retail: Level 5; increases the number of items i can list for sale by 8 per level

Wholesale: Level 2; increases the number of items i can list by 16 per level

Marketing: Level 2; this allows me to set up Sell Orders in stations other than the one i am in; i don't use this really

Given the level 4 Trade, level 5 Retail and Wholesale Level 2, i am able to post 93 items for sale (5 + (4x4) + (5x8) + (2x16).

As of right now, i have 46 items up for sale.

Courier Contracts

Each night, i get home from work and determine what i need to sell in Dodixie and Amarr.  I tend to focus on one location per night unless i need to courier over 1bn isk of items to both locations.  So Dodixie one night, Amarr the next.  Keeps my time on Eve to a manageable 45 minutes once i have added in a bit of looking into Invention.

To look up prices in Eve I am using Eve Tycoon which seems to have more of the latest items in its market browser.  I used to use evemarketer but i just got used to Eve Tycoon.

Each night i courier about 2 to 5bn isk of items from Jita.  The total cargo volume is 100-250m3 per shipment.  So small but valuable items.  But this allows the couriers to use small, fast ships with much less chance of being ganked.  So there is always someone willing to pick up the contract quickly.

I pay a generous 1.5 to 2.0% of collateral as fees.  I am more interested in getting my items onto the market quickly than penny pinching on distribution costs.

in the last 10 days or so of January and into the first week of February, i have not been making my target 2.5bn sales per day.  Hence, i have been having items couriered once every two or three nights as a result.  Market really slowed down at the end of January.

Eve Economy Data Charts

Nothing, yet, todo with my Eve Business ventures but just noting that in December i set up a website site eveeconomy.com which takes the monthly economic data provided by CCP and visualises it in chart form.

Loads of charts and more i can add.

I need to work out how to render the charts faster - right now they are accessed from a google drive given that is the way i have worked out how to update multiple charts at once quickly.

Let me know what you think and what else i should add.

Looking forwards to the December data given the recent battle.

Outlook

February will have five aims to it.

1) Plex the account - aim number one all the time

2) Increase sales in Dodixie - this may be tough given the slow market

3) Increase sales in Amarr - this may be tough given the slow market

4) Expand further into Invention

5) Investigate reducing 'costs of sale'.

The daily sales in December averaged 2.35bn.

If i assume i need to make 10bn + 1.4bn income per month (=11.4bn) and i assume i can achieve 15.0% margin then i need to make monthly sales of 76bn and so daily sales of 2.5bn.

January was my second month of achieving the 10bn after Plex costs.

Current wealth is 38.2bn ISK made up from:

• items in hanger for sale 1.3bn ISK
• Buy orders on the market 0.2bn ISK
• items for sale 45.1bn ISK

• less a 20% provision 9.0bn ISK*

• ISK in wallet 0.7bn ISK

When i add up my wealth, 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 or are used to generate isk that can be readily resold back onto the market.  Any ships or skills or fittings etc i buy are counted as expenses in that month.

* 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.  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 the maximum reduction I would need to make to my sell orders as a whole before they are sold.  In an ideal world I would value my sell orders at the value which I bought the items for.