Market Discussions

3 Reason comes to mind that at least are true for me.

If you are a manufacturer, often when some goods are fluctuating in price it can be to my advantages to stabilize it.
If you are lazy and kind of rich, you find yourself manufacturing everything on max runs, with the queue times in the station there can be a substantial time between starting the production and getting the items on the market.

Also if the item can be bought under production cost and I happen to have it in stock, I cant compete with those pesky traders that are buying it for below cost, they are just interested in the spread. While I have to factor in mineral cost. Often I can but up an buy order close to mineral cost. That way I ensure my self that a trader cant sell for less price than me.
If I get excess I just stop producing it and use my production somewhere else, and since I bought it close to mineral price, I can always refine and produce something else.

When you start dealing with a few millions (being modest) and if you still are lazy. In my case at least isn't always that interesting to try and maximize every trade. Instead you use the BPO you have and bends the market to your will instead. Often that can result in very low profit margin. Especially in the module market. But 4-5% profit overall on enough money can still be satisfying if it mean you can keep on being lazy.

I don't have time or interest to keep up with somewhere around 200 items, I win some and I lose some. If I find an item falling out of range I often just put up an buy order.

We do it to squeeze out little guys like you. I am happy with 2-3% on an item. Multiplied by 2000 orders on several trade alts and it adds up quickly.

So what you are saying is basically that you cut your profits heavily (since you have 2000 orders on multiple alts) in order to cut other people's losses slightly, who don't have nearly as much ISK locked up in the market. Sounds reasonable.

To all the others: Thank you. The comments were very insightful.

Pretty much that ^

Remember, everything happens for a reason, Even you posting this to the public, HAS a reason, Either to atract more little guys because you already realized this or as a plea for some big guy up there to stop, or who knows, whatever the reason is.

THERE IS ALWAYS a reason for everything, Become a market atheist, Ask yourself why everything happens and then figure out the reason.

Faction items are a Roller coaster, the battleships jump from 200 to 600, I don't bother with an item like this once it hits 385, because thats just me, I cut costs and risks whenever and wherever I can, my reason is simple, Hard to single my trade patarn out and cause damage.

Over the time iv bin playing, iv lost a total of 46M isk to failed manipulation attempts and bad or unlucky decisions like that, play it smart, then it give you the power, knowing you can never be booted from the seat while eating your little tiny slice of the pie you have cut out for yourself.

You run bots out of the market doing this too

When somebody undercuts me by 0.01 isk I undercut them by 1 mil for the lulz

when i get undercut by a million, i just buy the batch then sell it for 999999.99 profit

This. Just did this the other day. Some hotshot placed a bunch of a faction ammo on sell orders for less then I usually buy it for. Thanks for saving me the transport costs! Then he did it again, and I bought that. Then he dissapeared, probably frustrated that he is not making any money trading. You cannot be afraid to use isk to defend the floor of your items if you are confident you can support that floor. The profit off this item purchased from this guy is now over 50m isk.... thanks again!

Here's another reason: sometimes the prices between regions fall out of sync. You can quickly buy up from the low region and sell in the high region. You do this quickly because you're not the only one who noticed. To people in the high region it looks like selling at a loss but you're actually selling at a huge profit.