I made 75bn profits in November 2024 from which i utilised 28bn of my skill farm (more of that below). I also logged back onto all my old characters to use them to enter Manufacturing - that brought back 128bn. Therefore, my wealth rose by 203bn to 2.012 trillion isk.
If i just focus on the 75bn profits then this was a good month.
Distributions
These days, the aim is to distribute my profits to the Oz Tank Show or other ventures.
So far i have given 260bn isk to the Oz Tank Show + 40bn to The Oz Show + 5bn to the podcast Declarations of War to sponsor it.
The Oz Tank Show started in July 2023 and i have generated profits of 1.074 trillion in the July 2023 - November 2024 period and distributed 306bn.
So that leaves 768bn isk to distribute to some venture(s).
It is early days but the Oz Show is considering having some of its tycoons sponsor a new Corporation. Lets see.
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? Basically, i could either say that was 130bn spent in one month or i could spread the cost of the 130bn over a timeframe (which is how i have always accounted for Omega bought that lasts for longer than a month).
Accounting for the MCT / Omega Deal
I went for the option of spreading the cost of the 130bn over a time period.
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 by selling Large Skill Injectors.
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 then in November i made 28bn. Therefore the asset on the Balance Sheet is 130-17-20-26-28 = 39bn.
I expect it will take 2 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 January i should have recouped the investment leaving 4 to 5 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 November
In November i had sales of 401bn isk vs October of 352bn. So a rise of 14%.
That is my third best month of sale and above the long running average 330bn isk though helped by Skill Farms.
This comes to average daily sales of 13.4bn isk. In other words, each evening i expect to see across all my accounts an additional 13bn isk sitting on the characters to be reinvested back into the markets.
Item profits were 135bn isk which is a margin of 34% (135/401). So above the 25% target. There will be an upwards distortion from Skill Farming in here which one day i may attempt to reverse. I had thought the prior month 48% had data issues but since November did not indicate any data reversing i have come to the conclusion that i am selling items for higher than normal margin and the Skill Farming is causing a positive mix effect.
Taxes and Courier fees came to 32bn isk. That takes the Trading Profits to 103bn isk and so a trading margin of 25.6% (103/401). Above the 16% target.
Then we have 28bn Skill Farming Asset amortised to take me to 75bn profits
And then add in the 128bn wealth (mix of isk and assets) from the old characters logged into which takes the increase in wealth for November to 203bn.
What is needed to get wealth to rise to 100bn in a month?
In some ways, i am there now.
Once i get to the situation where the 130bn Omega is paid off and the Skill farming goes to profit then i have generation over 100bn profits per month in the last 3 months (September - November).
But lets assume i only get the 25% item profit margin that i target . . . . therefore 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. Alternatively, i could just become more profitable which is what is happening now.
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.
This is allowing me to move faster each night. Currently, i can now see which of my trades need updated and go straight to them rather than cycle through all trades. I can also see which sales have been made so i can see if i can replace them. I can also see what items i can buy from Jita Sell Orders to put up for sale in the trade hubs and make my target margin.
For me, the market was better in September, October and November. Back to the good old days for me after a quiet July and 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.
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 November
Blueprints: did better in November; and 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 - i.e. buy out all faction ship blueprints in one go. 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: more varied these days and has been like this for a while. They used to be a solid income earner but the competition is tougher now. 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. November was better but this feels like a slowing market for me.
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.
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.
That said, the Oz Show had a great interview with Sir SmashAlot where he talked about his manufacturing activities to the tune of making over 1 trillion profits per month! And the author of the blog I wanna be a Trillionaire, so frickin' bad... has moved into manufacturing and is making a good job of it.
That has made me think more about giving manufacturing a shot and so i logged back into old characters to bring them into the fold and so that i can start again on manufacturing.
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 6bn 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.
I also hold some BPOs + minerals + other items in inventory.
All that comes to around 151bn.
Furthermore, i am buying Skill Extractors all the time and i hold Large Skill Injectors for sale. Currently, these come to 166bn.
And finally, the old characters i logged back into came with around 110bn of items in their hangers.
What it means is that items in Hangers used to be 20bn but is now 427bn (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 around High Sec.
Once i get a grip, Buy Orders will also increase as i ramp up the Station Trading in Jita.
Currently Buy Orders sit at 76bn which is part Skill Extractor Buy Orders and Jita Buy Orders to station trade items.
ISK
For the last 12 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
Before i got to 1 trillion wealth, 2 trillion was the next aim.
But, it just got boring watching my wealth rise so i set myself the task of giving everything above 1 trillion away.
However, my wealth is now 2 trillion despite giving away 306bn and taking a provision of 324 bn. If neither of these things had been done then my current wealth would be 2.6 trillion isk.
Current Wealth
Current wealth is 2.021 trillion ISK made up from:
- Plex held as an investment 48bn ISK
- Items in hanger for sale 428bn ISK
- Items in hanger for use in business 11bn ISK
- Omega brought forward 39bn ISK
- Buy orders on the market 76bn ISK
- items for sale 1.62 trillion ISK
- less a 20% provision 324bn ISK*
- ISK in wallet 124bn 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.
