Early June update

I'm going to be away this weekend, so I'm making my update a couple of days early. Leaves a weekends worth of sales for the next month!

My current position:

I currently have 399.3Bn ISK. This is an increase of 29.2Bn ISK on last month. A pretty good month by all accounts, even with a slow start. This makes an average of 1064 Million ISK per day, finally broken the 1 Bil a day average!!!

This month has been all about my investments. As you can see my investments character is overseeing an extra 9Bn this month compared to last month. A lot of my investments, particularly my ships, experienced a sharp jump in value. This is probably due to the outbreak of a war in the north. I've plowed as much as I can back into investments. This seems to be a very scalable way of making money, even if it takes patience.

I would have broken 400Bn this month, but I experienced a boo-boo, where I entered a sell order for 123 mil rather than 1.2 bil. Woops. Fortunately not something happens very often, but a days worth of work gone in an instant is annoying all the same.

I have 3 accounts, with 8 characters dedicated to trading:

Jita Buyer

This is a character that sits in Jita and contracts items to my other characters. This character has little training, and mostly buys from sell orders and contracts the items to my other characters. I tend to have this character logged in to act as a real time price comparison whilst checking my other characters orders. This character also manages my long term investments, though that doesn't take much work. I am putting excess ISK into this venture, and watch delonewolf's EVE Talk to get ideas for things to invest in. Currently holding about 87Bn in orders and investments.

Amarr Seller

My main money maker, with ~138.7 Billion in active sell orders at the time of writing. Finished training Tycoon V on this character to increase orders to maximum. Takes implants and faction/deadspace modules delivered by my Rens character and sells them in Amarr.

Dodixie Seller

Very similar to the Amarr seller, he sits in Dodixie, takes receipt of items, then set up sell orders. Currently has 78 Billion in sell orders. No news with this character.

Rens seller/Hauler

Like the other characters, this character takes items bought in Jita and sells them in Rens. Currently has 87.5 Billion ISK in active sells. He also hauls my goods from Jita to the other trade hubs in a Crane.

Amarr station trader

Sits in a player owned Fortizar in Ashab, buys from buy orders and sells through sell orders with a range of 1 Jump to cover Amarr. This character trades completely different items to the rest of my characters. I gave this character 1 Billion to start with, and he's currently on 9 Billion.

Jita station trader

My more serious station trader. I have a character in Perimeter in a player owned Keepstar, with 0.3% broker fee that sits in one station, buys from buy orders and sells through sell orders with a reach of 1 jump.

Most of my items are bought and sold in the Jita 4-4 station. This character trades completely different items to the rest of my characters. I gave this character 10 Billion to start with, and he's currently on 46 Billion. I spent the time to get faction and corp standing up with this character, and this is my attempt to take station trading seriously.

Horde Seller

In a very similar way to the other selling characters, he takes items bought by the Jita Buyer, then contracts the items to "Valhalla Deliveries" (a delivery service for Pandemic Horde) to transport the items to the Horde Keepstar in BWF-FF. He then sells them there for a profit. He trades primarily T2 modules, drones and scan probes. I set him up with 1Bn and he's currently at 2.9 Bn in sell orders.

Horde staging has changed recently to SH1 to support the war in the north. This hasn't seemed to affect my turnover much, but I am considering relocating to try and make money off the deployment, rather than staying in BWF.

Tash-Murkon Region trader

A different strategy altogether. This character sits in a player owned Fortizar in Tash-Murkon prime, and set up regional buy orders for modules, implants and drones. When a lot of orders have been filled I fly around and collect it all to sell in Tash-Murkon Prime. I set this character up with 100mil to buy his own skills and get started, after skills he had 70mil to buy items. Currently at 2.9Bn. Can fly a Crane, which speeds up my collections immeasurably. I'm really happy with the turnover and profit margins this character is making. The running around the region to pick up items is annoying, but I can leave my orders up for a week and a lot of them won't be contested, which is really nice.

Large Skill Injectors, trade in station or transport?

On my Jita/Perimeter trader, one of my consistent money makers has been Large Skill Injectors. These are, like PLEX, high volume, high value, and low margin items, that are directly tied to the price of PLEX (so you can usually guess which way the price will go by watching the PLEX price). I've done some rep grinding on this character to get my broker fee down to 2.1% in Jita, and as Caldari are "allied" to Amarr, my broker fee in Amarr is 2.58% (from memory).

One thing I've noticed over the course of my activities is the different price spread between Perimeter (razor thin), Jita (slightly wider) and Amarr (much wider). For example, this morning Buy orders for skill injectors were 995 mil in Perimeter. So if I were to buy one there I would have the following sell options:
Perimeter - 995 * 1.016 = 1010.92 mil (0.3% broker, 1% transaction, 0.3% broker)
Jita - 995 * 1.034 = 1028.83 mil (0.3% broker, 1% transaction, 2.1% broker)
Amarr - 995 * 1.0388 = 1033.6 mil (0.3% broker, 1% transaction, 2.58% broker)

The sell prices (approx) were:
Perimeter - 1018 - 1010.92 = 7.08 mil profit
Jita - 1048 - 1028.83 = 19.17 mil profit
Amarr - 1088 - 1033.6 = 54.4 mil profit

Seems like a clear winner right? Not entirely. The volume in the forge is 5000-7500 per day, but in Amarr it's 500-750. There is also transport time to consider (in a sub 2 second align full tank Ares, but still). I used to exclusively buy in Perimeter and sell in Jita, but recently I've been buying 20 at a time, transporting them to Amarr and putting them up for sale. Any extra I buy in the meantime I tend to sell in Jita for a fast turn around. If you can be at the keyboard for a reasonable length of time I still think Jita is the place to sell due to the volume, but as I get 5-10 mins most mornings, a quick trip to Amarr can be the way to go.

May Update

Not a spectacular month, but not a bad one either. I feel like I'm into a flow now with my different trading methods working well. My current position:

As things stand, I have 370.1Bn ISK. This is 21.5Bn more than last month, or 716 Million ISK per day. A step down from last month, and slightly less than the monthly average I need to meet if I want to double my ISK by 02/01/20, which is 22.5Bn a month. A few good months mean I'm still ahead on that target, so I still think getting 540Bn by the start of next year is very doable.

I have 3 accounts, with 8 characters dedicated to trading:

Jita Buyer

This is a character that sits in Jita and contracts items to my other characters. This character has little training, and mostly buys from sell orders and contracts the items to my other characters. I tend to have this character logged in to act as a real time price comparison whilst checking my other characters orders. This character also manages my long term investments, though that doesn't take much work. I'm not doing a good job of accounting when it comes to these profits, but it's definitely earned me a few billion for very little work. I am putting excess ISK into this venture, and watch delonewolf's EVE Talk to get ideas for things to invest in. Currently holding about 78Bn in orders and investments.

Amarr Seller

My main money maker, with ~124 Billion in active sell orders at the time of writing.  I'm training Tycoon V on this character to increase orders to maximum. Takes implants and faction/deadspace modules delivered by my Rens character and sells them in Amarr.

Dodixie Seller

Very similar to the Amarr seller, he sits in Dodixie, takes receipt of items, then set up sell orders. Currently has 76.9 Billion in sell orders. No news with this character.

Rens seller/Hauler

Like the other characters, this character takes items bought in Jita and sells them in Rens. Currently has 76.6 Billion ISK in active sells. He also hauls my goods from Jita to the other trade hubs in a Crane.

Amarr station trader

Sits in a player owned Fortizar in Ashab, buys from buy orders and sells through sell orders with a range of 1 Jump to cover Amarr. This character trades completely different items to the rest of my characters. I gave this character 1 Billion to start with, and he's currently on 8.8 Billion.

Jita station trader

My more serious station trader. I have a character in Perimeter in a player owned Keepstar, with 0.3% broker fee that sits in one station, buys from buy orders and sells through sell orders with a reach of 1 jump. Test has recently declared a profit sharing agreement with Horde in Perimeter, which has lead to the KeepStar taxes returning to 0.3%. This is annoying, but I'll have to deal with it.

Most of my items are bought and sold in the Jita 4-4 station. This character trades completely different items to the rest of my characters. I gave this character 10 Billion to start with, and he's currently on 44.8 Billion. I spent the time to get faction and corp standing up with this character, and this is my attempt to take station trading seriously. I have recently started buying some Large skill injectors on this character, then flying over to Amarr to sell them, for a profit margin of about 40mil each. This is MUCH bigger than the spread in Jita/Perimeter, though it involves more travel time.

Horde Seller

In a very similar way to the other selling characters, he takes items bought by the Jita Buyer, then contracts the items to "Valhalla Deliveries" (a delivery service for Pandemic Horde) to transport the items to the Horde Keepstar in BWF-FF. He then sells them there for a profit. He trades primarily T2 modules, drones and scan probes. I set him up with 1Bn and he's currently at 2.9 Bn in sell orders.

Tash-Murkon Region trader

A different strategy altogether. This character sits in a player owned Fortizar in Tash-Murkon prime, and set up regional buy orders for modules, implants and drones. When a lot of orders have been filled I fly around and collect it all to sell in Tash-Murkon Prime. I set this character up with 100mil to buy his own skills and get started, after skills he had 70mil to buy items. Currently at 2.6Bn. Can fly a Crane, which speeds up my collections immeasurably. I'm really happy with the turnover and profit margins this character is making. The running around the region to pick up items is annoying, but I can leave my orders up for a week and a lot of them won't be contested, which is really nice.