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.

Null Sec seeding tool

I was chatting in the horde industry discord, and someone put me on to tool that had been made for seeding our staging system.

It looks at what our standard PVP fits are, and estimates how many are needed to keep us supplied. It also looks at the current price in the staging Keepstar, the price in Jita + delivery cost and highlights any items that appear overpriced at the moment.

In short, it lists out and highlights what some of the most profitable common items are in BWF-ZZ currently, for ease of importing. Brilliant!

Some of these items I was already importing, but it should make my nullsec seller more profitable, and reduce the workload when looking for items to buy. Credit to Testament81 for putting this together!

Croda is back!

So, a bit strange to make a post about a blogger returning from a hiatus, especially given my own hiatuses from blogging, but this one is especially relevant to me. Croda at his blog http://marketsforisk.blogspot.com/ was the blog I first read that inspired me to start my own high-sec trading empire, and go for the Trillion ISK that I'm hopefully on the path towards now.

He outlined the process of buying slow-moving items in one trade hub, transporting to a new one, and putting them up to sell that has been my bread and butter for the last 3 years.

Interestingly, he went from nothing to 420Bn in his first go round, but he then gave everything away. He has recently started again, new accounts, no skills but all his old knowledge, and has gone from nothing (well, 10 mil) to 3Bn in 21 days! My blog started with 3Bn, so I can make a direct comparison with his progress from now.

For those of you looking for how to get going with this way of trading, as well as reading a more entertaining blog, now is the time to subscribe to him. You can see him make a fortune from nothing in real time, and he does a much better job of explaining his processes than me, which gives me ideas for posts of my own.

April Update

A fantastic return to form this month. A combination of re-evaluating my sell orders and diligent play time have seen record daily profits! a HUGE increase on last month. My current position:

As things stand, I have 348.6Bn ISK. This is 30Bn more than last month, or 967 Million ISK per day!!! A full 140 mil a day more than my February update. This really is a staggering amount of money, and close to the magic 1Bn a day, which I didn't think was realistically possible as an average. Some of my investments have turned over, but nothing excessive, it's mostly been good turnover on my hub traders.

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. I cashed out my skillbook investment for about the new NPC price, for about 1.7Bn total profit. Not bad for holding some items for 2 weeks. Currently holding about 75Bn in orders and investments.

Amarr Seller

My main money maker, with ~122 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 76.3 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 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 8.5 Billion.

Jita station trader

My more serious station trader. I have a character in Perimeter in a player owned Keepstar, with 0.1% broker fee that sits in one station, buys from buy orders and sells through sell orders with a reach of 1 jump. This covers Jita. 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 39.9 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 2.1Bn. 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.

Skill book rebalance

So, the skill book changes have come in, much quicker than I expected.

The long and the short of it is that core skills can now be purchased from your character sheet, for a 30% markup, and the skill books sold by NPCs have had their prices adjusted. Skill books have long been the biggest ISK sink in the game, and CCP is keen to reduce the net amount of ISK being added to the game, to balance the game economy a bit.

Before the patch I speculated that capital skill books were a bit under priced, and would likely be seeing an increase. To this end I bought 5 of each racial carrier book and 2 or 3 of each racial dreadnought, coming out to 11Bn at NPC price (500Mil and 100Mil respectively). After the patch carrier books are being sold by NPCs for 550Mil, and dreads for 150Mil. Turns out I should have bought more dread books, oh well.

I've put my stocks up for sale, carrier skill books are currently being sold in Jita for about 624 Mil, and dreads for about 170 Mil. Assuming all sell I'll have made 2-3Bn for holding on to some skill books for a week. Not bad all things considered.

March Update

It's been an inexplicably terrible month for me. Hot off the back of my best month ever, activity on all my characters seems to have fallen through the floor, and I'm not overly sure why. I've even been playing quite a lot so I can't blame that. Regardless, my current status:

As things stand, I have 318.6Bn ISK. That is just 11Bn ISK more than last month, which makes it my worst month since I restarted blogging in July. My investments haven't increased in value in the same way as they did in January, but my trade hub sellers haven't seen much turnover either.

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. I've also taken a gamble on some dreadnought and carrier skillbooks, bought at NPC prices, in the hope that when CCP rebalances skillbook prices capital skillbooks see an increase. 100 Million for a dreadnought skillbook seems very cheap to me. Currently holding about 64Bn in orders and investments.

Amarr Seller

My main money maker, with ~126 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 69.8 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 61.7 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 6.7 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. This covers Jita. 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 36 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

A new addition to the trading roster. 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 2.1 Bn in sell orders. Horde has changed their staging system to BWF, so I had to tear down all my sell orders, taking quite a hit in some cases, and set them up in the new Keepstar. I've taken the opportunity to re-evaluate what I'm selling, switching to items with bigger margins, for now at least.

Tash-Murkon Region trader

Another new character, and 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 1.4Bn. 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. The margins are amazing as well. Will definitely keep this up.

February Update

So, it's been closer to a month and a half, but what a month and a half from a profit point of view!

As things stand, I have 307.6Bn ISK. That is 37.3Bn more than on the 21st of December, which works out at 828 Million ISK per day on average. That is a notable increase on any other month. No doubt taking advantage of a bump in Christmas activity, but still I am extremely happy with this month, and my expansions into other avenues of trading are really producing a lot of money now.

I'm going to set myself a target this year of doubling where I was at the end of 2018, so I want 540Bn ISK by the 1st Jan 2020. This will mean making an average of 22.5Bn ISK a month, which should be pretty doable, expecially when you consider this month.

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've managed to cash in quite a lot of investments out for 20%ish profit this month. 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 50Bn in orders and investments.

Amarr Seller

My main money maker, with ~127 Billion in active sell orders at the time of writing.  I'm training Tycoon V on this character to increase orders to maximum. I'm not sure how much I can increase the sells on this character, but it doesn't seem like I've hit my limit in terms of ISK yet. 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 67.5 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 68.3 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 5.8 Billion. Again, I barely touched this character. When I do have the time and motivation to station trade I almost exclusively use my Jita trader, as he makes more raw profit. I keep mulling this over, but I may end up cashing this character out and either setting him up as a seller in Hek (the only high sec trade hub I don't currently operate in) or setting him up to region trade in the same way as my Tash-Murkon trader. Either way this character is cripplingly under-utilised, so I need to find a way to get him making more money without adding much if any time to my existing trading activities.

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. This covers Jita. 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 34 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

A new addition to the trading roster. 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 O-V. 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 2.2 Bn in sell orders. I'm really happy with the progress of this character, as I don't do the hauling myself he takes very little work and is making good money. I can log in one morning, update his sell orders, buy some new items and set up a courier contract, and by the next morning my items are there and there is money in the wallet to buy another shipment. I should have started this character trading a lot sooner!

Tash-Murkon Region trader

Another new character, and 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 946 million. Can now 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. The margins are amazing as well. Will definitely keep this up.