As at the end of December 2022 my wealth is 736bn ISK after paying 4.9bn to upgrade to Omega for another 30 days for three accounts. My Wealth increased by 70bn in December.
Again, this is my best month ever. And therefore the last three months have been the best three i have had, increasing my wealth by 195bn isk.
Quick Summary
Much like September, October and November, i was pleasantly surprised how strong December was. Though the strength felt concentrated to the first half of the month which is a slight shame because i was on holiday and so not able to devote the time i normally do.
Overall sales were up 8% to 432bn - that is another monthly record for me.
I still suspect part of this is price inflation but i am for sure seeing better volumes which indicates a larger player base.
I think this is a feature of returning players - they firstly need to re-equip and so prices are driven up in what was already a short supply market. Eventually, they will start to populate the market with their loot and at that point prices will fall.
Blueprints were very strong in the first half of December having been strong in November and October. In the second half of December they went back to their normal low volumes - so that will be a headwind for me in January. In the final quarter of 2022 Blueprints have been a real whirlwind of money making. Mostly out of Jita.
My item margin was 26.4%. So above the target 25% though as was the case in October and November a bit below the 28-30% range established over the summer. Again, I suspect the pull back in margin was due to the higher than normal sales of Blueprints which tend to come in at exactly 25% margins.
In the last 12 months i have made sales of 3.2 trillion isk and profits (after everything including Plex) of 507bn isk having spent 46bn on Plex.
The overall aim of what i do is to increase my wealth by at least 10bn per month. So far i have beaten that in 21 / 28 months i have been running this venture and indeed in all of the last 17 months.
Activity
I continue to come on once a day to update Sell orders and replace items sold. About 30-45 minutes. Getting closer to 45 minutes these days.
I am experimenting with Manufacturing and Planetary Interaction.
Over 95% of my sales and profits still come from Regional Trading. So far 3% comes from Manufacturing and 1% from Planetary Interaction - more on those two in coming posts.
Target 1bn profits per day after all taxes and plex costs
I have now achieved this aim for the last six months. Was not expecting to. As i have witnessed in 2020 and 2021, the final quarter of the year is the strongest and 2022 was no different.
Target daily sales required to achieve 1bn profits per day
In summary, i generally need to make 7.5bn sales per day assuming my item margin is 25%
As the cost of plex rises then my daily sales requirement also rises.
On the current taxation levels to make 30bn ISK per month i would need to cover:
- Plex costs of 3 x 500 x 4.7m = 7.1bn
- Courier costs 2% of sales (i.e. = purchase cost + collateral)
- Broker Listing fees 1.5% of sales
- Broker re-listing fees 0.3% of sales (lets assume all sales changed at least five times per month)
- Transaction Taxes 3.6% of sales
That all works out at 225bn monthly sales will generate profits after all costs including Plex of 30bn isk. = 7.5bn daily sales.
Bottom line is that assuming i make my 25% profit margins then each 1bn of sales creates profits of 164m and these go towards buying Plex for the Omega accounts and whatever is left is reinvested in the business.
Looking at some sensitivity analysis
- if my item margins were 28% instead of 25% then i need only make 192bn isk of sales (or 6.4bn per day)
- if Plex rose from 4.7m to 5.0m then then i need to make 228bn isk of sales (or 7.6bn per day)
Review of the December aims
1) Plex the three omega accounts - aim number one all the time - achieved
2) Hold sales in Dodixie to down 40% - achieved, sales actually rose 26%
3) Hold sales in Amarr to down 40% - achieved, sales actually rose 11%
4) Hold sales in Rens to down 40% - achieved, sales actually rose 5%
5) Hold sales in Hek to down 40% - achieved, sales actually rose 30%
6) Hold sales in Sobaseki to down 40% - achieved, sales fell 14%
7) Hold sales in Tush-Murkon Prime to down 40% - achieved, sales fell 31%
8) Hold the investment and profits in Manufacturing - missed
9) Continue to investigate Planetary Interaction - achieved
In all, the December aims were almost entirely achieved. A very good month.
Reminder of my Current Business.
For now 95% of what i do is inter-regional trading - buying from Sell Orders in Jita to sell elsewhere. The rest is made up from Manufacturing and Planetary Interaction.
For Trading i focus on slow moving but high margin items. That keeps me away from fierce competition and i only need to sell an item once every 10 days to make good income.
For this side of my business, lets call it Merchanting or inter-regional trading, i want to generate profits of 10bn ISK per month after paying to Plex my account. Given i now have six Omega alts in Amarr, Dodixie, Rens, Hek, Sobaseki and Tash-Murkon i am hoping that this 10bn aim will be easily achieved.
My business model evolves over time. As my wealth increases i focus on higher value items. Therefore, i try also to stick to the rule of making a minimum of 100m profit per item sold. i.e. if i buy an item for 70m then i aim to sell it for at least 170m isk. This makes sure i don't waste my time on making low absolute profits and so preserves the 45 minute rule.
My main business is operated with three omega accounts (paid for with plex) with nine alts.
The main Trading alts sit in Dodixie, Amarr, Rens and Hek. I have also omega alts in the new Trading locations of Sobaseki (in Lonetrek) and Tash-Murkon Prime (in Tash-Murkon).
The other three alts sit in Jita and buys from Sell Orders, has these items couriered to the alts in Dodixie / Amarr and Rens / Hek and Sobaseki / Tash-Murkon Pime who then put them onto these markets for sale.
The Jita alts also serve to sell items that i can no longer sell in my trading locations Sort of clearance sales.
I also started in December 2021 to place alpha alts in other regions to see how it goes. I just need two of them to demonstrate that they can combine to justify an Omega account. Also, they need to take up very little of my time. So far the Sobesaki and Tash-Murkon alts made the grade and were upgraded in one account. Arnon and Alentenne are getting close.
The other regions so far are: Placid; Verge Vendor; Essence; Citadel and Khanid. And i am in an NPC station in Delve and Outer Ring. I have just started in Venal.
Jita
I have been looking at increasing sales in Jita for a few months. Focusing on blueprints and any items i manufacture in Jita.
I also do a little station trading in Jita (see below)
In October i did 30bn sales, in November i did a record 103bn sales though December slipped back a bit to 98bn. The main driver has been the blueprint sales which i think has now come to an end. I believe this is down to the Paragon system.
So, January onwards could be quite in Jita.
That said, this is where my Planetary Interaction sales go which are anywhere from 0 to 1bn per day.
Station Trading
Also in Jita i have started station trading. Sticking to my normal items - so little competition and slow moving. It is a slow a steady income stream. i.e. trying to buy items for 400m and sell for 800m. Very slow but very lucrative when it lands.
I will stick with it for now. May expand to my other omega trading locations. It was slower during December but i will be looking to expand the number of items i station trade.
Manufacturing
I am now six months into my Manufacturing project. It remains slow and i need to up my game. In December i only made 1bn profits. So far in January i have already made 1.2bn.
The aim is to cover the cost of an Omega account.
More in a later post.
Planetary Interaction
I am still experimenting for now, getting to understand it all.
I have abandoned the idea of extracting from planets in High Sec - i just could not extract enough to make it work. At best with three alts operating six planets each i could make 1bn isk profit per month for the cost of an extra 45 minutes every three days.
I am now experimenting with factory planets only. So buying the raw materials, shipping them to the planet and then taking away the finished product.
It is hard work getting the raw materials to my factory planets - mainly because there is not enough on sale around the universe.
If i did it every day i would make sales of 1bn and profits of around 200m. But that is really subject to the availability of the raw materials.
I have some ideas and will expand in a later post.
Other High Sec Trading Locations
I don't want to spend all my time on Eve doing Regional Trading (buying from one region, mainly Jita, to sell to another) but i do want to see if i can find really low competition but stable revenue streams of trading.
The current alpha account regions so far are: Placid; Verge Vendor; Essence; Citadel and Khanid. And i am in an NPC station in Delve, Outer Ring and now Venal.
The alpha trading locations made combined sales of 14.8bn which is almost inline with November.
This has really gone nowhere for a number of months - so i am now letting it wind down naturally. i.e. not replacing sold items.
Once i get enough spare isk i will likely create my fourth Omega account and put two of the alts in Arnon and Allentene.
The good news is that it takes barely any time to maintain.
Delve
I want to experiment with selling in null/low Sec. Hence, i have found an NPC station in Delve and started experimenting with items to sell.
It is not going well - sometimes threatens to improve but then fall back again. In December there was only 2.5bn sales. Over the last eleven months there have been 21.5bn sales in total. Hopeless. There must be a way to crack low/null sec . . . . . but i have yet to find it.
For good measure i am trying in Venal. Same story.
Plex
I am aim to store up to 6 months of Omega for each of the Omega accounts which would mean buying 9000 Plex.
Following the Omega offer in September i used the Plex i had to buy Omega stated up to the end of the year and then sold the rest. Following the end of the offer, when Plex went back to more normal prices i bought 3000.
Over time, i will buy another 6000. But nothing done in December.
A minor accounting point
In September bought 3 months worth of Omega accounts (i.e October - December) for 14.9bn (usual cost would have been 20.3bn).
The way i account for this is to consider than 14.9bn an asset for September. In October i expensed a third of it and so hold 9.9bn as an asset, and then 5.0bn in November and the final 5.0bn in December.
Therefore, in my accounting i recognise a cost to omega my accounts of 5bn per month. The normal cost would be 6.6bn.
The alternative accounting treatment would have been to recognise the 14.9bn as a cost in September and then no cost in October to December.
Analysis of Trading Profits
In total i made 432bn ISK of sales in December which made me item profits of 114bn ISK.
(item profit is the simply difference between sales done vs costs spent buying products, so before fees and taxes. Because i don't yet invest in items other than Plex i don't make any allowance for items still in stock - in part because i don't track the cost per item spent).
Overall, sales rose by 8% in December which reflects: nice sales increases in the main hubs of Dodixie, Amarr, Rens and Hek; still good trading in Jita though down 5%; declines in the other Omega hubs of Sobaseki and Tash-Murkon; and flat alpha accounts.
Dodixie was back to being the highest sales at 115bn isk, followed by Jita then Amarr with Rens and Hek almost equal.
From all these sales i made item profits of 114bn.
This therefore was an item margin of 26.4% (114/432) vs my target of 25%. This is another good month for margins.
My trading margins had been in the 25-27% range since April 2021 having before that been in the 28-32% range. So September (and June / July / August) was an outlier to the upside. October returned to this range as did November and December.
Manufacturing sales were 4.8bn, all in Jita, which is down 58% on November.
From this I then need to take a whole series of costs off before i get to my Business profits (and notice how they are more related to Sales rather than costs):
Courier Fees: i aim to pay 2% of sales value to the Courier = 2% x 432= 8.6bn
Sales tax cost me 16.2bn ISk (=3.75% of sales) - the Dodixie, Amarr, Rens, Hek Sobaseki, Tash-Murkon and Jita characters are level 5 in Accounting (=sales tax of 3.6%) and of course all the alpha alt accounts are only Level 1 (=sales tax of 8%).
Broker Fees costs me 13.9bn (=3.2% of sales). Now, i can break this down into the initial listing fee of 1.5% (because i am Level 5 Broker Relations on all Omega characters and lets to make the sums easier and include all the alpha alts) and therefore the rest is the cost of changing the price which is 0.30% a shot (i may have that 0.30% completely wrong!).
So, Listing Fee = 1.5% x 432= 6.5bn and so the Relisting Fee = 13.9-6.5 = 7.4bn which is 1.7% of sales. That shows that i do change prices quite often, bias to Amarr and now Jita.
This takes my 'Business Profits' to 75.1bn ISK for December vs 74.1bn in November. This is what 30-40 minutes a day in December gave me.
So, the post-tax margin is 17.4% (75/432) and so i achieved the 15% target.
The omega charge was then 5.0bn (see above in Plex section)
That, therefore, is the road map from 432bn sales to 70bn increase in wealth.
Items i am selling in Dodixie, Amarr, Rens, Hek, Sobaseki and Tash-Murkon
I sell blueprints, skill books, implants and ship equipment.
Blueprints are making a steady come back and this continued into December, though only for the first half - they are lumpy sales and slow, but that's how i like it. They can also be my slowest selling items and the items most likely to go 90 days without being sold. I generally sell one blueprint at a time though i am seeing the odd occasion where someone comes along and buys all the same type out at once.
Mining equipment is slowing as more traders enter this market but is still making decent profits. I suspect this is one of my lowest sales item group now.
Implants are doing ok and tend to be the most competitive - i am slowly expanding into more types and moving up the ISK value curve. I now keep to implants costing over 100m ISK and up to 2bn ISK. They don't sell well but when they do i tend to get a whole family sold at a time. Again, that's how i like it. A billion or so of investment can take 30 days to sell. I am seeing more instances of whole family's of implants being sold at once.
Skill books are now my lowest income generator for me but there are still a few nice sellers.
Ship Equipment is doing well.
Rigidly sticking to the 25% margin target. Courier fees and taxes now take 9% of that to bring me to a theoretical 16%.
Courier Contracts
Each night, i get home from work and determine what i need to sell in all the locations.
The time is taken changing prices were necessary (especially Amarr given it is competitive) and then figuring out what to sell with the ISK made from the prior 24 hours sales.
I have a list of items that feature regularly and i add to this list as time goes by. So is a case of checking Jita prices vs current location prices.
It takes a minute to check all the alt accounts.
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 5 to 15bn ISK of items from Jita. Used to be 2-10bn but things are better these days. The total cargo volume is 10-250m3 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.
Outlook
January will have nine very conservative aims - December was strong and things do feel a but slower. In effect, the January aims will be what December aims were!
1) Plex the three omega accounts - aim number one all the time
2) Hold sales in Dodixie to down 40%
3) Hold sales in Amarr to down 40%
4) Hold sales in Rens to down 40%
5) Hold sales in Hek to down 40%
6) Hold sales in Sobaseki to down 40%
7) Hold sales in Tush-Murkon Prime to down 40%
8) Hold the investment and profits in Manufacturing
9) Continue to investigate Planetary Interaction
The daily sales in December averaged 14.4bn.
Current wealth is 736bn ISK made up from:
- Plex held as an investment 14bn ISK
- Items in hanger for sale 8bn ISK
- Omega brought forward 0bn ISK
- Buy orders on the market 11bn ISK
- items for sale 834bn ISK
- less a 20% provision 167bn 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.
