Month end update - August 2024

I made 81bn profits in August 2024, from which i spent 2bn on Omega (more of that below), utilised 17bn of my skill farm (more of that below) and distributed 40bn to The Oz Show for raffles.  Therefore, my wealth rose by 23bn to 1.636 trillion isk.

Better month than i though given the first part i was on holiday and real life remains busy.

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 and 40bn to The Oz Show.

The show started in July 2023 and i have generated profits of 812bn in the July - August period and distributed 301bn.

So that leaves 512bn isk to distribute to some venture(s).

Six Omega Accounts to pay for / Skill Farming

In June i went for the MCT / Omega deal and have now pre-funded 6 accounts (so the 4 omega accounts and 2 alpha accounts) for 12 months.

This also took me into Skill Farming for the first time.

I spent 130bn isk on all that.

The way i am going to account for this is to first account for the Omega i bought previously and then start to account for the MCT/Omega deal.

Hence, for July and August i amortised the remaining Omega bought forward pre MCT/Omega deal.  So that was 8bn in July and around 2 billion in August.

Accounting for the MCT / Omega Deal

The question therefore is how to account for the 130bn isk spent on the MCT deal.

The 130bn bought me a 12 month Omega for 6 of my accounts and 12 months of MCT for 2 characters per Account.

As i skill farm i will generate revenues.

The way i have decided to account for this is to:

I will hold the 130bn on by Balance Sheet and as i sell the Skill Points into the market will will reduce the 130bn by the profits made.  This will mean i will not earn any profits from my Skill Farming until the 130bn asset is exhausted.

Hence, in August i made 17bn profits on my Skill Farms and so the 130bn asset reduced to 113bn.

I expect it will take 6 months to reduce this asset to nil by which time the profits made on the Skill Farming will then be taken as pure profit.

The basic numbers for August

In July i had sales of 284bn isk vs July of 206bn.  So a rise of 38%.

So a nice rebound from what was a poor July but below the average of 330bn.

It comes to 9.2bn sales per day.

Item profits were 105bn isk which is a margin of 37% (105/284).  So back above the 25% and perhaps the 17% made in July was a data glitch which was unwound in August.  Who knows.

Taxes and Courier fees came to 23bn isk.  That takes the Trading Profits to 81bn isk and so a trading margin of 28.7% (81/284).  Again, way above the 16% target.

Then we have the 2bn Omega cost, 17bn Skill Farming Asset amortised and the 40bn distributed to The Oz Show takes me to 23bn increase in wealth for August.

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

This still remains my target and i am hoping the Skill Farming will really help in 6 months time.

Lets assume i only get the 25% item profit margin that i target . . . . 

To get 100bn isk of an increase in wealth before distributions i would need to make daily sales of 18bn isk.

I am pretty sure i wont get there sustainably on the current strategy so i am putting my mind to how else to earning isk.  Skill Farming is one idea.  May need more.

My Sales Strategy

For me, the market was better in August.

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 armed with spreadsheets) 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.  If i put an item on the market and it sells in 15 days that is fine with me.

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

Each month i sell 20-30% of what i had to sell at the start of the month.

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.

What is selling well in August

I saw a decent pickup in Blueprints.  And not in 1s and 2s but in 4s and 5s.  Not sure why i would be seeing whole families of Blueprints bought but they are good earners.  Not sure i will see this continue into September.

Making good sales of blueprints can disguise what is a slow market.  For example, i may log in and see that i have made 16bn isk of sales of which Blueprints are 12bn on one character.  So nice to do but not sustainable.

Implants were nice and steady though they have become more competitive so i have lost market share.

Mining equipment for me is very low sales - much more competitive.  I still get decent sales in some items.  I find as we go through the Autumn demand will pick up and should be able to re-enter the market.

Ship Equipment did ok.

I have not sold any structures for a while - so stations and towers.

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.

But so far i manufacture items that sell for over 1bn isk.  My favourite items are where the Blueprint Original costs >10bn and there are no Copies in the Contract Market.  Sort of makes me feel i have the market to myself.

Planetary Interaction

For now, i have stopped trying to make this work.

Research

For now, i have stopped trying to make this work.

Station Trading

All in Jita.  And i am not focusing on this for now, so only 12bn sales.

Real life puts this on the back burner.

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.

What i don't do is Investing.  I.e. i don't buy an item now i think is cheap and hold onto it to sell it a few months later when the price has risen.

Alpha Accounts

I upgraded 2 of these accounts to Omega as part of the MCT deal.  So training them all hard to get to the 5m skill points to start the skill farm.

That leaves 1 Alpha account with a character in Venal left.  I also added another character to that account and am training it up to 5m skill points.  The idea here is to get another set of Alpha Accounts ready for Skill Farming sometime in the future if needed.

Current Wealth

Current wealth is 1.636 trillion ISK made up from:

• Plex held as an investment 0bn ISK
• Items in hanger for sale 189bn ISK
• Items in hanger for use in business 11bn ISK
• Omega brought forward 114bn ISK
• Buy orders on the market 33bn ISK
• items for sale 1.51 trillion ISK

• less a 20% provision 302bn ISK*

• ISK in wallet 83bn 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.