I made 129bn profits in October 2024, from which i utilised 27bn of my skill farm (more of that below) and distributed 5bn to sponsor an Eve show (more on that another time). Therefore, my wealth rose by 97bn to 1.818 trillion isk.
Another good month, on some measures my best ever in part because of the skill farming. On other measures my second best if i exclude my skill farming given it is still paying for itself. Either way, a good month.
Distributions
These days, the aim is to distribute my profits to the Oz Tank Show or other ventures.
The Oz Tank Show started in July 2023 and i have generated profits of 999bn in the July 2023 - October 2024 period and distributed 306bn.
So that leaves 694bn isk to distribute to some venture(s).
So far, sponsoring an Eve Show for 5bn is about as far as i have got . . . . .
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 - and so how to account for this?
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 and then in September i made 20bn profits from Skill Farms and so the asset was reduced further to 93.3bn and then in October i made 26bn profits from Skill Farms and so the asset is now 66bn.
I expect it will take 4 more months to reduce this asset to nil by which time the profits made on the Skill Farming will then be taken as pure profit.
So, thinking this through by the end of February i should have recouped the investment leaving 4 more months of pure profit from Skill Farming, and of course, the 12 months of Omega all paid for each of the 6 accounts.
This was a brilliant deal.
The basic numbers for October
In October i had sales of 352bn isk vs September of 369bn. So a fall of 5%.
So now back above the long running average 330bn isk again though helped by Skill Farms.
This comes to average daily sales of 11.4bn isk. In other words, each evening i expect to see across all my accounts an additional 11bn isk sitting on the characters to be reinvested back into the markets.
Item profits were 168bn isk which is a margin of 48% (168/352). So back above the 25% target. There will be an upwards distortion from Skill Farming in here which one day i may attempt to reverse. That said, this 48% does look high and suggests some data issues - may be or may be not, if there are problems these will be reversed in November. Lets see.
Taxes and Courier fees came to 40bn isk. That takes the Trading Profits to 129bn isk and so a trading margin of 26.6% (129/352). Again, way above the 16% target.
Then we have 26bn Skill Farming Asset amortised to take me to 102bn profits from which i distributed 5bn isk to sponsor a show and therefore giving a 97bn isk increase in wealth for October.
What is needed to get wealth to rise to 100bn in a month?
In some ways, i am there now.
This still remains my target and i am hoping the Skill Farming will really help in 4 months time. Technically, i achieved this in September and October. Lets see how November goes.
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 (pre skill farms) so i am putting my mind to how else to earning isk. Skill Farming is one idea. May need more.
My Sales Strategy
I am putting more effort into designing spreadsheets using the Eve Excel Addin to both make my online time more efficient and find those items to sell in the Regions quicker.
For me, the market was better in September and October, back to levels i saw earlier in the year.
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.
These items also tend to be price insensitive - players will buy the item almost whatever the price. The Buyer is much more interested in getting the item to use now rather than setting off to Jita to get it cheaper.
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. And more recently Large Skill Injectors.
What is selling well in October
Blueprints: continue to be a steady source of revenues; similar to what i have seen since August, i am seeing Buyers buy out whole groups of blueprints. Given Blueprints i buy at base cost - so i source Blueprints from the source NPC stations and have then couriered to the Selling location - and therefore the item profit margin starts at 25% and perhaps ends a bit lower by the time the Blueprint is sold.
Implants: varied and has been like this for a while. I am seeing more competition coming in. My experience with Implants is that they sell by the family - i.e. the alpha / beta / delta / epsilon / gamma / omega implant all sell to the same buyer at once. So they can be good earners when they occur. But, i would say that my implant sales are getting lower over time.
Mining equipment: very low these days; competitors are all over this.
Ship Equipment: doing better over a right old range of items - afterburners, armour repairs, shield repairs, weapons are the main staples.
I sold one or two towers this month.
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 9bn 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.
Plex
At the start of September i bought 8000 Plex at around 5.3m each. The main reason for doing this is to have a store of plex ready in case of any deals on the NEX store that comes along.
The holding of Plex has made a small profit of around 3bn but this is not the reason for holding the Plex - it is purely there as a ready source for any deals that come along.
Items in hanger for sale
There are a number of items that i sell that can only be sourced from Regions outside of The Forge (the home of Jita).
I used to have these items couriered directly to the trading location to sell but that has proved to be tedious over time.
Therefore, i now have the items couriered to Jita and stored. When i a trade location needs one of these items to be sold i can then courier them from Jita - a much easier process to handle.
In effect this means i am couriering these items twice - once to Jita and once to the trade location. Therefore, i add the additional courier cost to the Sale's price.
What it means is that items in Hangers used to be 20bn but is now 182bn (this also now includes Skill Extractors and Large Skill Injectors).
Buy Orders
Buy Orders have varied over time but are now back on the rise as i start placing Buy Orders for Skill Extractors.
Once i get a grip, Buy Orders will also increase as i ramp up the Station Trading in Jita.
ISK
For the last 6 months the average ISK in wallets has been over 100bn compared to around 50bn before this.
The reason for his is purely real life being busy and so not having the time to make sure everything is invested.
2 trillion wealth
Not there yet and it is not an aim - i want to give my isk away.
But, worth noting that my wealth is 1.818 trillion and i have given away 306bn - so i would be at 2 trillion by now.
Also, worth noting that my wealth being 1.818 trillion and if i added back the provision of 327bn that i take away then by wealth would be 2.1 trillion.
Current Wealth
Current wealth is 1.818 trillion ISK made up from:
- Plex held as an investment 46bn ISK
- Items in hanger for sale 183bn ISK
- Items in hanger for use in business 11bn ISK
- Omega brought forward 66bn ISK
- Buy orders on the market 80bn ISK
- items for sale 1.63 trillion ISK
- less a 20% provision 327bn ISK*
- ISK in wallet 125bn ISK
* 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.
