February Economic Report - Trade, Production and Mining

I was looking at the February Economic Report and seeing which Regions were the busiest (and slowest) in terms of Trade / Production / Mining.


Trade

		Trillions
1	The Forge	707.5
2	Domain	114.1
3	Sinq Laison	42.2
4	Heimatar	22.2
5	Metropolis	15.6
6	Lonetrek	13.4
7	Essence	5.2
8	The Citadel	4.6
9	Providence	4.3
10	Tash-Murkon	3.3

No surprises that for Trade it was the 5 Trade Hubs in the order we know: The Forge (i.e. Jita); Domain (i.e. Amarr); Sinq Laison (i.e. Dodixie); Heimatar (i.e. Rens); Metropolis (i.e. Hek).

Perhaps some surprises in the next 5: the expected Essence and Tash-Murkon are there.  But also Lonetrek and Citadel (both Regions that are one jump out of Jita) and Providence (null sec space that borders Domain / Tash-Murkon / Devoid / Derelik) - more on Providence below.

For me, it was that Lonetrek is close on becoming a key secondary Trade Hub that caught my eye.  I will need to investigate further what is driving the Trade - i also sell into Lonetrek and do ok business but nothing off the dials.  Certainly not as much as i do in Metropolis (Hek).

The dominance of The Forge reigns supreme though.

For me, i find The Forge way too competitive hence i aim to sell very little there.  Domain is also very competitive hence i tend to list less than my all the items i can sell.  I find Sinq Laison, Heimatar and Metropolis make good hubs for my trading income.  I also trade in The Citadel - nice income stream from low competition.

Production

		Trillions
1	The Forge	17.2
2	Lonetrek	13.2
3	The Citadel	12.0
4	Domain	6.8
5	Sinq Laison	4.6
6	Providence	3.2
7	Deklein	3.2
8	Vale of the Silent	2.8
9	Metropolis	2.4
10	Geminate	2.0

In terms of Production The Forge is top slot - makes sense, many people will produce near where they buy the raw materials and/or intend to sell.

I suspect Lonetrek and The Citadel benefit from being next to The Forge.

I do all my production in Lonetrek - historic reasons but found no reason to change so far.

Providence is null sec space but connected to a number of High Sec regions - also see below for more.

Deklein - more on that below though it seems clear why it is high up on the Production tables despite being null sec.

Mining

		Trillions
1	The Forge	1.6
2	Domain	1.1
3	Lonetrek	1.1
4	Providence	1.0
5	Metropolis	0.9
6	Everyshore	0.8
7	Malpais	0.8
8	Deklein	0.8
9	Tash-Murkon	0.7
10	The Kalevala Expanse	0.7

Mining also had few surprises at the top.  The Forge and Domain being major Trade Hubs - so people mining near where they intend to sell and Lonetrek being next to The Forge and itself a major production Region.

I guess Providence is up there given it is nullsec space that is very connected to several High Sec Regions - and see below for more.

Overall Slowest Region

I looked at how each Region ranked on Trade / Production / Mining and looked to see which region was at the bottom of each table.

The slowest, by a clear win, is Cloud Ring.  Bottom of the pack for Trade and Production.  Only 6bn ISK traded and 11bn ISK mined and 15bn ISK of production.  (vs The Forge of 708 Trillion / 1.6 Trillion / 17 Trillion respectively).

Oddly, though, the Destroyed value was ranked about middle of the pack.

No NPC stations would be a hinderence, and the remote location also a deterence.

It is though only 13 jumps out of Jita hence i jumped into my Interceptor and took a look around.  I met hardly anyone in there whilst i was flying around.



Non-Highsec Regions of note



Deklein

One of the busiest non-highsec regions is Deklein (Providence is the busiest).

2.6 trillion ISK traded and 760bn ISK mined and 3.2 trillion ISK of production.  It is in the top 10 for Production and Mining, and number 13 for Trade.

Now this demonstrates how little i am aware of the game outside of the Economy.  I decided to take a look around.  Passed through 2 battles no less to get there and discovered it is, more or less, the home region of the Goons.

Not an NPC station in sight (assuming i am reading the Dotlan Maps correctly).



Providence

In terms of Trade / Production / Mining outside of High Sec then Providence takes the top slot in every category.

In part because it is directly connected to the High Sec regions of Domain / Tash-Murkon / Devoid / Derelik.

There is no NPC station as far as i can tell hence there does seem to be more to it.

It is also one of those few regions where Imports exceed Exports by over 120% (indicating that people are bringing more items into the Region as vs taking items out).

As far as i can tell, so far, there is an ethos / rules in the Region that are more neutral friendly than most.  If that were the case, i can see how it would encourage / allow greater participation in trading, production and mining than other null / low sec regions.

I am looking into this Region - i still need to find a Low or Null sec region to set up my next trading venture.

The cost of the repeating Scope video in the Captain's Quarters

Anyone who is docked in the Captain's Quarters for longer than 6 minutes will hear the Scope video: "The serpentis corporation has been suffering heavy losses both in ships and materials etc etc".

Technically, there are two videos being shown:

So here are some quick facts:

• They play every 6 minutes, one after the other.
• They use 22mb in total (11mb each)

So, for 1 hour docked in station it costs 220mb.  That all starts to add up if you are in the station updating market orders, working on industry or just have an alt sitting there doing nothing.

And then if you have more than 1 account open . . . . . . . 

If you, like me, have a cap on what you can download and have to pay for additional MB then several hours of playing Eve starts to become a real life financial cost.

It can only make sense to be able to toggle this to play only once per log on session.

February Economic Report: the upward driver to plex prices

CCP Quant has put up another Dev Blog post looking at some of the economic metric within the Eve Online economy for February 2016.

It follows on from the talk given at Eve Vegas which looked at the economic metrics for the month of September 2015 - that specific blog post also gave the definitions of each item of data.



Active ISK - and what it means for the price of Plex

The chart below shows the amount of ISK sitting in alts wallets (green line) and corp wallets (orange line) to give the total ISK just lying around as the blue line going back to 2012.  In summary, there was 949 trillion ISK lying around by end of February, a rise of 13 trillion.




949 trillion is a lot of spare ISK to have lying around - but the question we could have is how much is needed to finance player operations (replacing destroyed ships and equipment, running war operations, running trade operations, etc i.e. in wallets and expected to be spent) and therefore how much is truly doing nothing and therefore can be spent on Plex.

To answer that question we need to use the "Velocity of ISK" graph below.  The Velocity of ISK described how much of 1 ISK is used over a 30 day rolling period.




As can be seen above, the trend has been falling over time to now below 0.5x.  The recent large spike was caused by skill extractors.

But lets stick with the 0.5x and indeed the long term decline.  That tells us two things.  Firstly, of the 949 trillion ISK lying around, only 475 trillion is actually used per month leaving the other 474 trillion just sitting idle.  Secondly, that proportion of ISK and absolute value of ISK just sitting idle is rising each month and so can only be an upside driver for Plex prices - what else would it be spent on?

As i write the price of Plex is 1.13 billion ISK and is flat over 6 months having rising from 0.80 billion to 1.30 billion, breaking 1bn in June 2015.  The recent move has been down but it feels like the ongoing rise of ISK coming into the game (mainly through bounty payments and NPC buy orders).

In a way, I would always expect the ISK coming into the game to exceed player requirements (i suspect CCP don't want people to leave because they can not get enough ISK to play - and the ease of getting ISK for you and me may not be the case for someone else, so the required ability to get enough ISK needs to be quite low).  Hence, until a new Sink (method of taking ISK out of the game, such as transaction taxes) comes along we have an inbuilt upward driver of Plex prices.

Perhaps what is also interesting is that if we add up all the ISK coming into the economy and deduct all the ISK leaving the economy then we get a rise of 22 trillion ISK which therefore indicates that 9 trillion ISK (22-13) was held by characters that ceased their subsciptions - not sure how much Plex is also "retired".

Bringing PVP and team based PVE to the masses

Something of a thought for Eve Online here - though nothing to do with making ISK - but all about seeing if we can bring the joys of PVP to the PVE / HighSec community.

I was missing said other game referred to as World of Warcraft.  I was missing the ability of someone like me, a solo player, who enjoys the markets and PVE but also the ability to get into PVP and team based PVE at the drop of a hat for short periods of time (like an hour or so).  So i fired the game back up and started a new alt.

What does WoW do for instant PVP or team based PVE?

Eve Online gives me the great market based game (much deeper than World of Warcraft) but is not as good on the ability to get into team based PVE or PVP almost instantly if i am not in the right location geographically in the game.  Generally, i have to travel to get some team based PVE or PVP.

The way World of Warcraft allows such instant PVP or team based PVE to happen from very early on in the game (i got to that point within 4 hours) is to allow players to queue to form a group that is going to enter PVP or PVE.  Whilst they are in the queue they can continue doing what they were already doing (general PVE etc).  These are called Instances, and the other players on the server can not interfere with them.

The queuing players specify the role they will take (tank, healer or dps).

And once enough people are in the queue to form a group each player gets notified that the PVE / PVP is about to start and, if they accept, they are instantly taken from their current location to the location of the PVE / PVP event.  Once over, each player is returned to their prior location.


How could this relate to EVE?

Clearly, Eve already has PVE / PVP events ready to go but, as far as i am aware, there is no way of being transported straight there?

My proposal is to create PVP events (instances), with set ships and specs (say 5 frigates on each side with set specs and set clone specs) where players can put themselves in a queue to join.  When enough people are ready then the players are notified and transported straight to the event.  Hence, these can happen at any time - just needs enough players to want to play.

Would seem to be an ideal way of getting different players together and allowing PVE / HighSec players to see what PVP is all about.

And something similar could happen for team based PVE.


But would this not detract from general PVP?

Not really.  It does not in WoW.  It is another aspect of the game that allows solo players to mix with others or those in guilds (corps) to enjoy team based events when their corp is not online.

How to use this blog as a beginner to make ISK

I have been getting more in-game and out-of-game emails about this blog.

Worth highlighting right off the bat that the best way to use this blog to learn how to make ISK is to go to the first blog post and read onwards.

For sure, some of it will be out of date but the learning points are all relevant.

I started with 4m ISK and went from there.

Each post talks about my progress to that point in time and what i have done.

Within the first month of the blog i have a post "Summary of route to 1bn ISK Wealth" which does just that.

And then of course there is a page dedicated to the youtube videos that i find useful to learning how to make ISK and a page dedicated to the podcasts that discuss the Eve markets.

And keep an eye on the page where i list the other Eve business blogs that i know of.  Several no longer updated but their learning points remain valid.

My strongest advice is to start small and learn the basics - much of a strategy that works at 10m wealth works at 100bn wealth.

Eve Prosper Interview with Caleb Ayrania

The Eve Prosper Market Reviews are great to listen to.  I highly recommend these as standard weekly events for all market players in Eve.

The producer, Lockefox, has also started a series interviewing the players who operate businesses within Eve.

His third interview was with Caleb Ayrania who is a long time player in Eve so the talk takes a look back at the Eve market places.

49 minutes long.

I liked the parts on prior attempts at Banks and Insurance Companies (i would really like to start one).

Well worth a listen.

As a reminder, Lockefox has done some great interviews on his blog with other Eve business players:

His first interview was with Delonewolf who produces Eve Talk - another Market Review youtube cast to watch.

The second was with Charlinda:

Null / Low Sec ventures to date

I am still pondering where to set up my low/null sec trading location.  My current location in H-PA29 V in the Venal Region is not working as hoped.  Probably not yet made a billion of sales since i set up back Null Sec trading in August 2015 and hence it is not yet covering the set up costs.

That said, i have better news on my ability to travel in low/null sec.  Since i set up with the current ship below i have not been destroyed (famous last words, i am sure i will be nailed at some point).

Plenty of attempts made on me, all the damage has come from smart bombs as i warp to a gate.

I still get a small sense of victory as i warp through bubbles that spring up in front of me or gate jump having received damage from smart bomb attacks.

So far, so good - i have been able to go where i want.

[Taranis, Melchett UK's Taranis]
Damage Control II
Inertial Stabilizers II
Inertial Stabilizers II

Republic Fleet Medium Shield Extender
Republic Fleet Medium Shield Extender
Pithum C-Type Adaptive Invulnerability Field

Prototype Cloaking Device I

Small Low Friction Nozzle Joints II
Small Core Defense Field Extender II

Financial Review of 2015

Now that 2015 has come to an end, time to take stock of where my business stands financially and how it did in 2015.

My Strategy

As a reminder, i have 2 accounts and so 6 alts in total.  One alt in each trading hub (Jita / Amarr / Dodixie / Hek / Rens) and a second on Jita trying to make my null sec trading work.  Each of the alts (except the null sec trader) also sells into a second region, the Jita alt sells into two regions.  In all, therefore, i am selling into 10 markets (i don't sell into Jita).

My strategy remains unchanged.  I am looking for slow moving products to sell at high profit margins (minimum 20%).  This is in contrast to other (much richer) traders out there who look for fast moving but low margin items to sell.  My style suits my play time.  I am trying to avoid the competition whereas the other traders take them on (and win).

An item that I can buy for 100m ISK from a Jita sell order and sell in Dodixie for 130m in 5 days time with no maintenance to the sell order is fine with me.  In fact, that would be just ideal.  If i had 5 products that did that then i would earn 150m ISK over 5 days for 500m ISK invested.  That is close to getting me a Plex a month.  (before taxes etc etc but you see my point)

My overriding aim is that each business venture must be able to Plex an account per month and my total time spent on my businesses each day must not exceed 45 minutes.

As a general rule, if I am able to log on for at least 45 minutes each day then I make 7bn ISK per month.  When real life is busy I make less (sometimes close to nil) and other times I make more.

Current Wealth

My current wealth stands at 266bn ISK.

My wealth is calculated by adding all Sell Orders less 20% value of Sell Orders as a provision against cutting prices over time + Buy Orders + Items in Production + Items for sale in hangers  +Items for sale in transit + ISK balance + Plex.

I don't value BPOs or BPCs or Ships or Towers etc.

If i did not have that 20% provision (=34bn ISK) against my Sell Orders (=171bn ISK) then my Wealth would be 300bn.  But i like the concept of this provision - it reminds me that i will doubtless need to reduce the prices to shift the items to sell as competition comes in.

When i look at how the sell orders are split over my alts, it is noteworthy that my Amarr business is smaller than Dodixie.  This is a reflection that Amarr, whilst being a large market, is quite competitive.  In fact, i suspect i am slowly starting to leave Amarr.  I have always found Dodixie works best for my strategy.

The Jita sell orders are actually sell orders in two regions near Jita.  I don't sell more than a few items in jita - way too competitive.

My Corporation holds the ISK balance and Plex.

The 8.7bn of items sitting in Jita are items stored there to replace items sold in the trading locations.  I would have had them couriered to those locations in early January.

Profits made in 2015

In 2015 i made 109bn ISK vs 96bn in 2014.  That equates to about 300m per night.

Perhaps not an inspiring increase on 2014 but i will plead Real Life getting busier.

Within that 109bn, my Plex investment made me 31bn ISK (vs 6bn in 2014).  I started the year with 72 Plex and ended the year with 94 Plex.  I bought 22 Plex in March for 798m each.  My average cost per Plex is 711m ISK vs todays price of 1.1bn ISK.  This has been a superb investment.

The rest of the 109bn was made through trading and manufacturing, as detailed in my blog post My Current Business Operations.

Given how busy Real Life has been i have not really changed what i sell much.  If anything, i have started selling the T2 variants and some Blueprints that typically sell for over 1bn ISK.

Therefore, when i put that altogether in the mix, and my Trading / Manufacturing made me 78bn ISK in 2015 vs 90bn ISK in 2014 which is a fairer reflection of real life being busier.

Monthly Profits

My monthly profits have varied from a small loss(!) in December to 20bn in November.

I am increasingly finding that my Plex investment is making me 3-4bn per month, sometimes more.  In December the price of Plex fell which, despite positive trading profits, pushed me into a loss.  I honestly have no idea what i will ever do with my Plex holdings.  I have plenty of ideas how CCP could allow those of us who hold Plex to use it as collateral to make an EVE banking system but this is for another day.

Another way of looking at my monthly profits is to ask what is the monthly profit as a % of my wealth (i.e. Return on Capital Employed per month).  I tend to make between 0 and 7% ROCE each month.  In other words, my wealth tends to rise by 0 - 7% per month.

Make up of Wealth

My aim is to ensure all my wealth is trying to make a profit.

Hence ISK in my wallet is not very helpful, it is not making me any profit at all, and never will - though i tend to operate with 10bn ISK in my wallet at any time to cover daily business costs.  That is how i roll.

Also, items for sale in my hangers is of no use - right now that is running at 10bn ISK also which i need to reduce.  These tend to be items that i once wanted to sell but for whatever reason are no longer in demand or items waiting to be shipped out to the selling locations.

As at the end of 2016 i had sell orders of 171bn ISK and 104bn of Plex all trying to make a profit for me.

Plex Account

I started investing in Plex back in February 2014 (at a starting cost of 636m per Plex!).

My reasons for investing in Plex i detailed in an early post but in summary i find this is the best way of investing surplus ISK to hold its value in the game (i.e. an inflation hedge).

Since then i have entered the Plex market a further 5 times and now own 94 Plex, valued at 104bn ISK.  I last entered the Plex market in March 2015.  My total cost has been 67bn ISK - so a nice tidy profit.

One side effect of this 104bn ISK of Plex is that a 5% fall in the price of Plex will reduce my wealth by 5bn ISK.

Hence, in the December Plex price fall, my total wealth actually went backwards despite positive trading profits due to the fall in the value of my Plex holdings.

i was ganked - back a while ago

I found this lurking in my drafts from quite a while ago (ok, a few months at best).

A fine example of me not practicing what i preach and thinking i could quickly move some raw materials to my production facilities in Sobesaki.

Bottom line is that my T1 Indi was trying to carry 400m ISK of raw materials and got ganked warping off the gate after the jump.

What i like about Eve is the willingness of the players to talk about it and provide advice . . . . . . see below:

Some good advice on why 100m is the limit.


Baldrick UK > ouch
Koselig > Never move more than 100m in a t1 indy
Raidjinn > no never move more than 20mil
Baldrick UK > good points
Baldrick UK > how much was i moving?  400m?
Koselig > Abit over 400m
Baldrick UK > ah, hope you got enough of it :)
Koselig > Vexors usually kill stuff 120++ and nadoes from 250 and up, depending on how bored they are
Baldrick UK > ok, thanks for all that
Koselig > Nice doing business with you and good luck in the future. Im off to bed. I hope you will prosper in the future
Baldrick UK > thanks @)
Baldrick UK > )
Koselig > Check out freight services btw, lots cheaper than getting ganked :P
Koselig > o/


Way back in May 2013 i was advising using Courier Contracts for cargo over 100m ISK.  I should take my own advice!

My Current Business Operations

As we enter 2016 it is worth me taking stock of my business on Eve.


My golden rules

I have two golden rules:

• Every venture must have the ability to earn a Plex a month per account.

• I must not take up more than 45 minutes per day doing this and be able to achieve the Plex per month by just operating at weekends if need be.

What i can do

My alts have the skills to trade, manufacture, mine, interplanetary interaction and invent to a reasonable degree.

Of these, i don't mine (i enjoy the relaxation of it all, the the comradery but it is a low ISK making venture and i certainly can't get it anywhere close to a Plex a month), i don't invent (never really got my head around it) and i put Interplanetary interaction on the back burner given it was a bit of a pain to keep going and an uncertain income (and the clicking to set up a new planet is somewhat mind numbing).

I also have a small POS tower in the Sobaseki system - which is doing nothing as i consider what, if anything, i plan on doing with it.  Gives me a sense of owning something in space though.  Sometimes i sit in its shield pondering what could be.

I used to trade Plexes but i found that also a pain to keep on top of.  Made some ok ISK but nothing spectacular.

Furthermore, real life is busy which leaves me with the weekend and perhaps a week night or two to operate with.


What i actually do

That leaves me doing Trading and Manufacturing.

I have narrowed down what i manufacture to some T1 and T2 items.  My aim is to find items where there is low competition (and so low demand and in low volume).  I find that items that meet the criteria of low demand / low volume tend to have high profit margins (i.e. not much price sensitivity).  I can't charge any price but i can charge a high price.

Very broadly, i make about 6bn ISK per month from trading and manufacturing.

Add in the rise in the 94 Plex whch gives me an additional 5bn per month.

In all, my wealth from Trading + Manufacturing + Plex wealth appreciation gives me 11bn per month.


The Center of my Operations - Jita

I don't sell anything in Jita - as always, i buy items from Jita Sell orders to ship to my trading hubs around Eve.  I don't place Buy orders in Jita (in fact, i dont place Buy orders anywhere, i always buy from Sell orders).

All items that i buy from all stations and all items i manufacture get shipped to Jita first.  They are then shipped to their end destinations.  It makes life easier to control that way.

Manufacturing

I manufacture out of Sobaseki.

I have blueprint originals for all my T1 items.  None of them are researched - i don't compete on cost.  For the T2 items, i have BPCs where relevant.

I manufacture if it is cheaper than buying from Sell orders at Jita.
I use my Obelisk to transport the raw materials from Jita to Sobaeski and then to transport the finished items back to Jita.  One jump, so quite easy to do.


Core Trading Hubs

I operate in the four key trading hubs: Amarr; Dodixie; Hek; and Rens.

I find Amarr quite competitive and so i don't tend to stock my full range of products (gets too painful updating the price every time i log in).

Dodixie is my favorite given the competition is low but the demand good.

Hek and Rens are steady income makers - nothing dramatic but the two alts that look after Hek and Rens make at least a Plex worth if ISK each a month.


Peripheral Trading Hubs

I also sell almost my complete range of products in five other regions.

Very little updating to do - i am often the only person selling these products in those regions.

About once a week i need to replenish some items that have been sold.  Slow business but a nice steady stream of income.  For not a lot of work i suspect they all add up to making a Plex worth of ISK a month.


Null Sec Trading

I set up a trading post in H-PA29-1 in the Venal region.  Put about 8 billion ISK into the venture several months ago.

Having sold a princely sum of 600m ISK of goods i can safely say this Null Sec venture idea is not yet working.

Hence, i am now looking for a new place to set up shop.  I want to make a null sec or low sec trading operation work - so i will stick at it.


Hauling

I, of course, don't haul my items from Jita to the end destination.  I contract all my hauling to New Evolution Express.  I use their "Priority" service every time.  Never failed me yet.  Cheaper than the other Hauling businesses on offer (though, i am purely hauling in High Sec).