Market Discussions

Probably trying to ensure that other larger orders above don't follow down. Ie. if I had an order of 100 waffles and someone selling one waffle undercut me by 0.01 isk I might think "I'll let that one go, don't want to get involved in a bidding war in case they go and get mad and slash profit in half"



This one more difficult to pin down. It's regularly assumed to be "idiots ruining the market for both of us" - whatever the cause never succumb to this line of thinking, it's very dangerous (read, expensive) to presume other's intentions. They might be doing it to "show they're serious" or they might favour cash flow with smaller profit over larger profit at the expense of cash flow, or they might know something you don't about upcoming market swings, or they might indeed be an idiot, or they might be forcing a price down in order to hoover up lots of items for an upswing, or - possibilities are endless.

I'll share my best selling/buying tactic, I call it "the perfect order".

Instead of playing the 0.01 isk game or making a huge change in price and daring the competitors to follow you, your orders should be of the perfect price and size such that your competitors think, "oh i'll just let that one go". The trick is, you just keep putting that same order size and price reduction up over and over as they sell.

The price has to be significant enough that it would cost them something to follow it down and the order has to be small enough that they think it will quickly be snapped up and it will be their turn.

It takes some getting used to, but it is infinitely better than playing the 0.01 isk game.

I remember we had put together a list of all the little tactics at one point, it would be great to find that on the old forum. There are at least a dozen standard tactics with variations for helping you make moves in the market.

There is discussion here about deep undercuts in trading: Why do people crash markets?

On the big profit slasher you sometimes want to take into account that some folks want items they are or anticipate using at below the sell order prices in a given area. Sometimes they want the order filled quickly so they put out BO's that are much higher than everyone else, hoping to bait potential sellers into selling their stuff more quickly. In those instances you just have to ride out the buyer. I've seen times though where another seller tries to .01 isk these people and a bidding war starts that's way over what I'm willing to pay. Again, just gotta ride it out imo.

I must say that I am a notorious .01 person though. If you use your trader as an alt or someone that you don't pay much attention to I can see how this would get annoying but it's what keeps me engaged in the markets and not bored to tears. I also get a lot of satisfaction from .01ing someone and then having a huge BO or SO filled just seconds later.

I've also taken and bought a small quantity of items that I know are in a hot market (say POS fuels) for example and then started bidding wars with people just to **** with their profits. It kills me to raise a BO price on something like Nitrotopes by 20 or 30 ISK with an amount like 200, only to see some idiot trump the price with an order for a million units.

Thanks for the advice everyone. The 0.01 ISK thing is wearing thin with me at the moment. I usually update twice a day and I might get an hour or two at pole on the popular orders.

Perhaps I need to be more willing to ride out the daily bumps.

This might change what I'm looking for in a trade.

This in a nut shell. I actually just started trading on this character a week or so ago and read a few guides here on the forums before I started. Everyone of them mentioned the key to being a good trader is patience, along with some market knowledge (what's selling, profit margins, etc.). Kara is generally very intelligent and also helpful in these matters. She knows her ****.

Nice Thread.


One of the things that i learned long ago, that helps me keep the fun factor is longer term profit planning.

I do not have to make my sale or buy today.

Sometimes i use a target range for my buys and sells, often i don't update for days even weeks if ive learned there are wave patterns... and during the ebb and flow my orders will get picked up or sold.


But most of all .... i make sure im having FUN. As long as its fun you will find ways to make profits

If the market is currently on a downward trend, then once someone undercuts you, your order will never see the light of day again. The big profit slash tactic may be an attempt to drop your prices close enough to the short-term equilibrium that your order will be picked up by regular market cycles.