Adjustment, a mistake, and big write-downs

So, I've basically not logged in this month until yesterday. I'm not really sure why, partly been busy with work and gardening/doing things around the house. Partly I've been playing some Classic WoW for a bit of variation, partly I've just not had the same motivation to log in.

All that meant that when I did log in I was greeted with this on my skill point seller:

Oh dear. Over a week of no skill training at all! On a character with +5 implants! I promptly extracted 4 extractors worth of skills and sold them on the market, and set up my queue again. Skill points aren't worth what they once were, with the price of PLEX dropping but this is only meant to cover the PLEX cost of my 4th account, so the exact ISK amount doesn't really matter.

Skill points is a nice segue into my other mistake, one that's lead to a huge write down in my valuation. On the same character, I used to trade Large Skill Injectors prior to the broker relations change. I would buy from 1 jump buy orders in Perimeter, and sell them either in Jita or Amarr, Amarr being the higher margin but slower moving market. This worked well, until the changes came in, and the value of PLEX, and therefore Skill Injectors, dropped continuously. I had a sell order up for 30 skill injectors for 1079 mil each in Amarr at the time. As they never sold, I left them hoping the price would rebound and I'd get the sell eventually. This hasn't happened, and when I logged in yesterday I found myself with a lot less in sell orders and 30 injectors sat there. Oh dear.

I decided to bite the bullet and take the hit. It'll leave me with a more realistic valuation anyway.

I flew to Amarr, and put up a sell order at the new value - 777.4mil.

1079 * 30 = 32,370

777.4 * 30= 23,322

So that's a write down in value of 9Bn ISK. Ouch.

Painful, but it's a more accurate reflection of my actual net worth. Overnight 19 of them sold, so I might have to adjust to get rid of the additional 11, and then work out how to re-use that capital. Speaking of capital, I have over 100Bn sitting in wallets. This is a first, but also a bad thing, that 100Bn is earning me nothing! need to up my game significantly. I also carried my highest value blockade runner cargo yet today, at 84Bn! Can't imagine how deflating it'd be to get ganked carrying all that.

I've done my normal trade run and after all of this I'm 5Bn up on the start of the month. If you add on the write down it would be 14Bn. I'd expect to be 22Bn up at this point, so you can really see the hit from not logging in. Going to be a poor month but I won't let it happen again!

May Update

This has been a pretty good month for me in game. I've had slightly more time in game due to a bit of time off over Easter and generally settling into the new routine. I've been really happy to be able to start to ramp up a few new ventures, although there is more to come and I have more plans afoot.

Anyway, my current position:

I currently have 675.8Bn ISK, an increase of 33.3Bn on last month, on a 30 day month as well! It's great to be back making over 1Bn a day. I would have made more than that but the price of PLEX has been crashing:

I have 10,000 PLEX, bought for as much as 4,187,000 ISK. PLEX is currently worth 2,700,000 and falling fast. For every 100,000 ISK price change I gain or lose 1Bn as I have 10,000, and the price has dropped from 3,195,000 over the last month, or about 500,000, which equates to a 5Bn ISK loss for me! If it weren't for that I'd have made 38Bn this month, it would have been record breaking! Alas, my market choices do not occur in a vaccuum, so I have to take the bad with the good.

I suspect the reasons for the drop in PLEX price are twofold. One, CCP has licensed another server in China, and recent changes to Chinese law demand all players play on their own server, not with the rest of the world so Tranquility will be/has lost a chunk of its population. Less demand = lower prices. In addition to that we are in the scarcity phase of resource changes in EVE. There have been nerfs to resists and fighter application, making ratting more challenging/less profitable across EVE. Mining anomalies in null have been significantly reduced in size, and normal minerals removed from high sec moons, reducing the supply of minerals and pushing the price up. All these taken together means that items and ships cost more, and are less effective at earning money, which means people have less to spend on PLEX, which pushed the price down. Where this will balance out to I'm not sure, and it may not until resources are redistributed and a new normal is found.

I have 4 accounts, with 11 characters dedicated to trading:

Sobaseki Seller

A change! and finally getting this character going. I've set this character up in the IChooseYou Sotiyo in Sobaseki, 1 jump from Jita. Crucially it is in a different region, so items can be sold at a profit vs Jita. I've been training him up as a normal selling character, though dealing with slightly different items to my Hub sellers as Sobaseki is not really big enough to warrant routinely selling implants for hundred of millions. He's primarily been selling things like +3, +4, +5 implants, probe launchers, skillbooks etc. He's got a decent turnover, though I'll be adding more orders and ISK as the month goes on. Currently has 8Bn in sell orders.

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 132Bn in orders and investments.

Amarr Seller

My main money maker, with ~145 Billion in active sell orders at the time of writing. 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 120 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 153 Billion ISK in active sells. He also hauls my goods from Jita to the other trade hubs in a Crane.

Hek Seller

Like the other high sec seller characters, he sits in a trade hub in Hek and sells items brought to him by the Rens seller. Currently on 68Bn in sell orders. Needs to pay for his own PLEX every month, which isn't too difficult.

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 17.4 Billion.

Jita station trader

My more serious station trader. I have a character in Perimeter in a player owned Keepstar, with 0.5% 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 71.2 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. He also farms SP and sells injectors on the market.

Horde Station Trader

Station trading in the Horde Keepstar in R10-GN. I set him up with 1Bn and he's currently at 9.5Bn.

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 7.9Bn. Can fly a Crane, which speeds up my collections immeasurably. I frequently find I struggle for motivation to fly around a region collecting a million here, 3 mil there, so I am thinking of changing this to being a selling character. Being just 2 jumps from Amarr he could even do his own hauling, buying from there and selling in Tash-Murkon Prime. Will partly depend on how the Sobaseki seller ramps up.

Manufacturing Character

I've finally built my first Raitaru! I spreadsheeted everything up, bought the minerals, set up a public courier contract for 10mil to haul the minerals to Hurj... and then found I was 40,000 Pyerite short. Quick trip from Rens later I was good to go. All in it cost me about 580mil in minerals, fees and couriers, then I hauled it myself to Rens and it sold after 2 days for 650mil. Pretty good return! I need to ramp this up and work out the transport kinks, but I think this is going to be a good background earner, especially once I branch out into other citadels and maybe get my own set up for doing the manufacturing in.