Translate this page

Some beautiful music to read the blog with

Tuesday 7 February 2023

Month end update - January 2023

As at the end of January 2023 my wealth is 811bn ISK after paying 8.2bn to upgrade to Omega for another 30 days for four accounts.  My Wealth increased by 75bn in January.


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 214bn isk.

The target of 1 trillion ISK is coming into sight.  Must not get carried away, the market tends to start to slow now - so lets make end of June the target to reach 1 trillion ISK of wealth.


Quick Summary

Much like September, October, November and then December i was pleasantly surprised how strong January was.


Overall sales were up 5% to 453bn - that is another monthly record for me - and was driven by my main Trading locations in Dodixie and Amarr with Rens, Sobasek and Tash-Murkon helping out.  Jita declined heavily as expected as competition that was absent for November and most of December came back online.

What sold well?  Implants and Blueprints doing well though Blueprints i suspect saw an overall decline with the pull back in Jita.

My item margin re-entered the 28-30% range at 28.2%.  So above the target 25%.  I suspect the rise from December's 26% was due to less Blueprints being sold which i tend to do at 25% item margin on the dot.


In the last 12 months i have made sales of 3.4 trillion isk and profits (after everything including Plex) of 541bn isk having spent 43bn 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 22 / 29 months i have been running this venture and indeed in all of the last 18 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 seven 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.  Lets see how the first half of 2023 goes.


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 January aims

I had been realistic in my Aims after what was a strong December.


1) Plex the three omega accounts - aim number one all the time - achieved

2) Hold sales in Dodixie to down 40% - achieved, sales rose 14%

3) Hold sales in Amarr to down 40% - achieved. sales rose 20%

4) Hold sales in Rens to down 40% - achieved, sales rose 17%

5) Hold sales in Hek to down 40% - achieved, sales fell 6%

6) Hold sales in Sobaseki to down 40% - achieved, sales rose 15%

7) Hold sales in Tush-Murkon Prime to down 40% - achieved, sales rose 55%

8) Hold the investment and profits in Manufacturing - achieved, profits rose 90%

9) Continue to investigate Planetary Interaction - achieved


Overall, this was a superb month in meeting the aims



Started a fourth Omega Account

I bit the bullet and started a fourth Omega account with trading Alts in Arnon and Alentene.  Not sure if this will work but seems a nice way to invest the profits as i trundle on to 1 trillion wealth.



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.

To put this in perspective.  I had Sell Orders of 834bn up at the start of January which generate sales of 453bn.  In other words, i sold 2% of everything i had for sale every day.  The is slow and i like it.

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 eight Omega alts in Amarr, Dodixie, Rens, Hek, Sobaseki, Tash-Murkon Arnon and Alentene 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 four omega accounts (paid for with plex) with twelve 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), Tash-Murkon Prime (in Tash-Murkon), Arnon (in Essence) and Alentene (in Verge Vendor).

The other four 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 and Arnon / Alentene 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 / Tash-Murkon alts and Arnon / Alentene made the grade and were upgraded in two accounts.

The other regions so far are: Placid; Citadel and Khanid.  And i am in an NPC station in Delve and Outer Ring.  I have started in Venal.

I am struggling to make the Low Sec locations work.



Jita

I had a good time making sales in Jita since September.  I feel these times are coming to an end now.  I used to make sales of 8bn per month.  By November that peaked at 100bn and in January had fallen to 75bn.  I estimate that accounted for 15% of my profits.

I was going to scale back from Jita but looking at these numbers in the cold light of day makes me reverse that decision.  It is harder work but worth it.

Therefore, i will stick to the blueprints where my 25% item margin remains intact and ramp up the station trading (see below).

I have also started putting cheap Buy Orders up in the Trading locations and having the items shipped to Jita to be sold.

I don't know what the Station Trading the shipping items in Jita did for me - but i suspect it was good money.



Station Trading

A bit more on Station Trading in Jita: I stick 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 was slower during January but i will try and expand the number of items i focus on.



Manufacturing

I am now seven months into my Manufacturing project.  It remains slow and i need to up my game (i know, i said that before).  In January i only made 1.9bn profits (so after all taxes and fees).  And, checking my data, i only actually have 9 manufactured items up for sale.  I need to ramp this up.

The aim is to cover the cost of an Omega account.  i.e. profits of at least 2.5bn.



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 also experimented with factory planets only.  So buying the raw materials, shipping them to the planet and then taking away the finished product.  That only really worked if i bought the materials from outside of Jita in my main Trading locations.

It is hard work getting the raw materials to my factory planets - mainly because there is not enough on sale around the universe to keep the factory planets going at full capacity.

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 then noticed that the Import and Export taxes really hit profits.  And i noticed that if all i did was buy the materials in my main Trade locations, ship them to Jita and then sell them i would make the same profits as using factory planets.  So that is what i do.

I need to make this more efficient - so spreadsheets will be set up this month.



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; Citadel and Khanid.  And i am in an NPC station in Delve, Outer Ring and now Venal.

My alts in Arnon and Alentene were upgraded to Omega during January - but for the purposes of the below, lets assume they were still Alpha.  It will take me a few months to get them fully up to speed in terms of maxing out the relevant Trade skills/

The alpha trading locations made combined sales of 13.1bn which is a decline from the 14.8bn made in December.

I am scaling back in places for now.  I don't replace the sales made anymore.

The trial has been done, i feel i know what Locations are best and which don't work.



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 January there was only 3.3bn sales.  Over the last twelve months there have been 24.6bn 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.

I am rethinking how to make low/null sec work.



Plex

I am aim to store up to 6 months of Omega for each of the Omega accounts which would mean buying 12000 Plex (= 6 x 4 x 500).

I now have 4500 in stock - having bought an additional surplus 1500 during January.

So, 7500 to.

That said, CCP are changing their attitude to Omega prices and there is a permanent sale on that gives a discount to the Plex required for longer periods of Omega purchases.

I went through this in this post and came to the conclusion that the 3 month deal which is 3 months Omega for 1200 plex (vs the normal 1500) was a great deal, so i went for it for my four Omega accounts.

I spent 25bn isk on Plex to buy the four three-month Omega deals.



A minor accounting point (again)

Similar to back in September 2022, i have to think how i account for buying three months of Omega for each Omega account (4 accounts).

I spent 25bn which will allow me to stay on Omega to end of April.  Had i just bought Omega monthly then the cost would have been 30bn.

The way i account for this is to consider the 25bn an asset for January.  In January i expensed a third of it and so hold 16.4bn as an asset, and then 8.0bn in February and the final 8.0bn in March.

Therefore, in my accounting i recognise a cost to omega my accounts of 8bn per month.  The normal cost would be 10bn.

The alternative accounting treatment would have been to recognise the 25bn as a cost in January and then no cost in February to March.



Analysis of Trading Profits

In total i made 453bn ISK of sales in January which made me item profits of 128bn 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 5% in January which reflects: nice sales increases in the main hubs of Dodixie, Amarr, Rens, Sobaseki and Tash-Murkon; still good trading in Jita though down 24% - my third best month in Jita; declines in Hek; and down overall in the Alpha accounts.

Dodixie was back to being the highest sales at 130bn isk, followed by Amarr then Rens and then Hek.  Jita though at 75bn sales would come between Amarr and Rens.

From all these sales i made item profits of 128bn.

This therefore was an item margin of 28.2% (128/453) 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.  From June to September 2022 i had been in a higher range of 28-32% but the higher volumes of Blueprint sales in October to December 2022 brought the margins down to 25-27%.  January was back up to the 28-32% range.

Manufacturing sales were 4.8.7bn, all in Jita, which is up 81% on December.

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 453= 9.1bn

Sales tax cost me 16.9bn ISk (=3.73% 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 14.3bn (=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 453= 6.8bn and so the Relisting Fee = 14.3-6.8 = 7.5bn 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 83.0bn ISK for January vs 75.1bn in December.  This is what 30-40 minutes a day in January gave me.

So, the post-tax margin is 18.3% (83/453) and so i achieved the 15% target.

The omega charge was then 8.2bn (see above in Plex section)

That, therefore, is the road map from 432bn sales to 74bn 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 January, though i am pretty sure the sales fell in January on December given Jita was much slower as competition returned.

Implants are doing well 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.

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.

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

February will have ten very conservative aims - January was surprisingly strong so the expected January aim will be the new February aims:


1) Plex the four 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) Ramp up Arnon and Alentene

9) Hold the investment and profits in Manufacturing

10) Continue to investigate Planetary Interaction
 

The daily sales in January averaged 14.6bn.


Current wealth is 810bn ISK made up from:
  • Plex held as an investment 22bn ISK
  • Items in hanger for sale 4bn ISK
  • Omega brought forward 16bn ISK
  • Buy orders on the market 5bn ISK
  • items for sale 906bn ISK
  • less a 20% provision 181bn ISK*
  • ISK in wallet 38bn 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.

No comments:

Post a Comment