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Wednesday, 17 April 2024

Month end update - March 2024

I made 76bn profits in March2024.  There was no Oz Tank Show and so no distributions were made.  Therefore my wealth rose by the 76bn to 1.368 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 2023 and i have generated profits of 504bn in the July - March period and distributed 260bn.

So that leaves 244bn isk to distribute to some venture(s).


Four Omega Accounts to pay for

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

As i write, i have bought enough Omega to see me through to August / September which comes to around 36bn isk that sits on the Balance Sheet declining by 7bn each month as it is utilised.


The 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.


If i assume the aim of all of this was to buy cheap Omega then 4 x 90 day Omega cost me 8.3bn isk (40-31.7) vs the normal cost of 24bn isk (1200 x 5 x 4).  In other words a discount of 65% for 90 day Omega.

If i assume the aim of this was to make normal profits and the Omega was priced as normal (=24bn isk) then i made profits of 15.7bn isk = (31.7-(40-24)).

This turned out better than i thought even though the initial calculations were very attractive.

During April i sold the unused Skill Extractors - they had risen nicely in value and i would expect CCP to give away Skill Extractors as part of a deal for MCTs in the future.


The basic numbers for March

In March i had sales of 392bn isk vs February of 286bn - though this includes the Skill Farm sales of 36bn isk.  Strip that our then sales were 356bn, so still a good rise on February .

Including the skill farming, that is about 12.7bn sales per day - so back up with the 2022 / 2023 glory days.

Item profits were 122bn isk which is a healthy margin of 31% (122/393).  So, again, profitability is good.  Much better than the 25% target i set.  But this includes the 100% profit margins from the Skill Farming sales given the Skill Extractors were provided in the deal.

As always, the key point here is that to grow profits i need to grow sales.  The profitability i make is good.

Taxes and Courier fees came to 39bn isk.  That takes the Trading Profits to 83bn isk and so a trading margin of 21.1% (83/393) which is better than the 15% i target.

Then add in the 7bn plex cost to Omega 4 accounts takes me to 76bn profits made in March.


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

It did feel like the market was picking up in March and certainly in April to date the market has been stronger.

My strategy is to Buy from Sell Orders in Jita to sell in the trading hubs in other Regions.

I don't sell consumable items such as ammunition given they tend to be high volume and very competitive.  That includes ships.

I rarely sell items used as components in manufacturing because the end buyer tends to be cost conscious and able to manufacture the items themselves if market prices are too high.

I sell items that are in low supply and sell very slowly.  These items tend to have very low competition - sellers want to get cash quickly and so don't bother in these items.

I sell items that are typically bought to kit a ship as a player progresses or has to replace a destroyed ship / pod.

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.

And in the secondary trading hubs Amarr / Dodixie / Rens / Hek buyers will not travel even one jump to buy a cheaper item.

Therefore, i mostly sell Implants, Blueprints, ship equipment and some structure modules.

Implants have picked up, notably mining related implants.  A classic sign of new or returning players.  Implants often see by the family - in other words, the Alpha / Beta / Delta / Epsilon / Gamma / Omega implant will all sell at the same time.

Structure modules are doing better which suggests more structures are going up somewhere.

Blueprints are going ok - i mostly sell ship blueprints.  These are the slowest of all the sales i make and often get towards the end of the 90 days and so i need to update the order to ensure the item does not delist.

In Jita i dabble in some Station Trading and also manufacturing items for sale in Jita where i am the only seller.


Where is it all selling?

Dodixie is back to being the best location with 96bn of sales followed by Amarr with 71bn sales.  Historically, when sales were better, Dodixie would get over 100bn and Amarr around 100bn.

Rens was 51bn which is about as good as it gets and Hek a low 17bn.

Sobaseki was 33bn which is good and Tash Murkon was 42bn which was a new record.

Arnon a poor 4bn and Alentene an ok 16bn.  So covered the cost of the Omega.

All the above helped by Skill Farming Sales of around 3-5bn.

Jita sales were a nice 63bn - which is one of the all time highs.


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 63bn 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

I run them slowly.  I have characters in 6 other locations but i am winding them up slowly.


Current Wealth

Current wealth is 1.368 trillion ISK made up from:
  • Plex held as an investment 0bn ISK
  • Items in hanger for sale 43bn ISK
  • Items in hanger for use in business 11bn ISK
  • Omega brought forward 37bn ISK
  • Buy orders on the market 21bn ISK
  • items for sale 1.46 trillion ISK
  • less a 20% provision 291bn ISK*
  • ISK in wallet 92bn 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.

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