Month end update - February 2024

I made 75bn profits in February 2024.  There was no Oz Tank Show and so no distributions were made.  Therefore my wealth rose by the 45bn to 1.293 trillion isk.

Distributions

These days, the aim is to distribute my profits to the Oz Tank Show or other ventures.  Watching numbers go up once i got to a trillion wealth is somewhat boring.  Hence, my wealth will barely increase and any monthly surplus will all be given away at some point.

So far i have given 260bn isk to the Oz Tank Show.

The show started in July and i have generated profits of 428bn in the July - February period and distributed 260bn.

Four Omega Accounts to pay for

Keeping 4 accounts on Omega cost me 7.0bn isk in February - that is as a result of taking advantage of the Omega / Plex deals when they come along every 2 months or so.

A new Platinum Starter Pack on the New Eden Store

This was a great deal.

For a 10bn outlay per Account i got 500k skill points and 2 MCTs for free or i got 90 days Omega at half price . . . . . . depends how you looked at it.

As i discussed in another post, the Start Packs in the New Eden Store were reset and i chose to spend 40bn across my 4 Omega accounts which will generate me around 28bn isk from Skill Farming and means i have bought my normal 3 month Omega for all four Accounts for 12 bn instead of 24 bn isk.

I expect to realise the profits this month and so will be in a good position to determine the profits then.

The basic numbers

In February i had sales of 286bn isk vs January of 402bn.  So a clear slowdown back to the December levels.

That is about 9bn sales per day which was the 2022 daily average but lower than 2023.  For the last 6 months the Sales have been down on the same month 12 months ago.

Item profits were 84bn isk which is a healthy margin of 29% (84/286).  So, again, profitability is good.  Much better than the 25% target i set.

The key output point here is that to grow profits i need to grow sales.  The profitability i make is good.

The question is whether 2023 was a super normal year and i was merely seeing better sales than what i really should have or if something has changed for the worse since then.

Taxes and Courier fees came to 32bn isk.  That takes the Trading Profits to 52bn isk and so a trading margin of 18.0% (52/286) which is better than the 15% i target.

Then add in the 7bn plex cost to Omega 4 accounts takes me to 45bn profits made in February.

What is needed to get wealth to rise to 100bn in a month?

To get 100bn isk of an increase in wealth before distributions i would need to make daily sales of 18bn isk . . . . . . so double what i am doing now.

I am pretty sure i wont get there on the current strategy so i am putting my mind to how else to earning isk.

What i am selling

No change here.  Same as usual - Implants, Blueprints, ship equipment.

I have a rule that the minimum profits have to be 100m isk.  It is no use me buying items for 5m to sell them for 15m.  The profitability may be great but that won't move the dials.  That said, it is surprising how many items i can buy for 120m from Jita Sell Orders and sell for 220m in the other trading hubs.  At that isk level, players re-equipping don't care about spending an additional 100m isk to save time.

Blueprints are doing better again.  They are by far the slowest item i sell and the most common i need to update to avoid them being taken off the Sell Order after 90 days of being unchanged.

Implants are doing well though there is a general shortage of some like the Harvest Blueprint.

Ship Equipment is ok.

Where is it all selling?

For the first time Rens was the best sales location doing 61bn isk of sales.

Dodixie and Amarr both did around 40-50bn with Jita close at 36bn.

Everything was down on January except Hek.

Manufacturing

I do this opportunistically and i don't keep track of it.  I don't (yet) do it systematically but i need to get a grip.  I am sure there are many items i sell in the Trade Hubs that i could manufacture in Jita and so get a better in price vs buying them from Jita Sell Orders.

Planetary Interaction

Started this up again to remind me how it works.  Following the changes to volumes, i can keep my planets going for a long time before i need to pick anything up.

The ultimate aim is to do this in low or null sec.

Research

I am experimenting with this to see if i can get it off the ground.  The idea comes from a video by Strange Net where he discusses how he makes money from BPOs.  It requires the use of the Contract Market which i am not a fan of.

I have kicked it off with a few researched BPOs to see if i can make this work.

Station Trading

All in Jita.  This is going ok.  Sales were 37bn which is above average.

I still really need to ramp this up but again i don't yet have a systematic way of going about it.  Similar story to Manufacturing.

My idea of station trading is not buying items when they look cheap.  For me, station trading is about sticking to the slow moving items and quite often i am the only person in Jita trying to sell an item.  Almost always Selling for over 1bn isk.

Alpha Accounts

They have all now stopped trading.  Other than Arnon and Alentene, all the other locations show little promise at this stage.  I will keep them on but they will be dormant for now.

Current Wealth

Current wealth is 1.29 trillion ISK made up from:

• Plex held as an investment 0bn ISK
• Items in hanger for sale 60bn ISK
• Items in hanger for use in business 11bn ISK
• Omega brought forward 42bn ISK
• Buy orders on the market 18bn ISK
• items for sale 1.39 trillion ISK

• less a 20% provision 279bn ISK*

• ISK in wallet 47bn 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.  The only exception to this rule is Blueprint Originals i use for manufacturing.  They are held at cost.

* 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.