Market Discussions

I don't really think it's possible to have a realistic hedge because there aren't really competing commodities in eve, and there is no branding for competing products. The closest thing would have been buying a large stock of aars and asbs right when the price hit the plateau for both and then hope for some fleet doctrines out ccp changes to emerge to create some volatility. Unfortunately asbs are just better for the most part so that doesn't help.

As for an eve possible hedge, i could imagine that if eve improved its shares system and people started using it, investing in both push industries and red frog could give you a realistic long term hedging scenario for example.

It's interesting that plex has been mentioned as the 'gold standard' for inflation hedging. But is that really true? If I were to sink my net assets into 100% plex, the isk value of that asset pile most certainly fluctuates in my ability to convert that into gankageddons over time. However, if I have gankageddons, then that fluctuation is mitigated isn't it? Remember we're trying to hedge isk, not rl$.

It's tough to pin down a 'market basket' because it's always shifting. However a rigged fleet/mining/mission-ready ship is the 'standard' in-game consumable commodity from what I can see. The goal must necessarily diversify across the asset categories of all of eve in the proper ratios, which of course is prohibitively complicated. But if the goal of hedging is to approximate game ratios, I don't see how having rigs and T1 complemented by isk and plex is inferior to any of the other approaches. It's like having gold, cash, pork bellies and frozen concentrated orange juice as far as I can tell.

IMHO the best hedge would be minerals. Ample supply and demand keeps their price mostly free from speculation and their value is directly correlated to the much paraded "isk per hour" so they would follow any inflation (or deflation) very closely. Finally, I could dump 100B of minerals on the market over a week or so and not have a big effect on their price so they are also as liquid as you can get.

Right now I would believe former tier 1 and tier 2 battleships would be a good long term hedge as they're underpriced and correlate strongly to mineral prices from above, so are the former tier 1 battlecruisers as well, but I would limit my investment in them to 10B or so because the volume isn't high enough to dump all on the market at once if I wished to liquidate. See for example that it's been six months from the battlecruiser tiericide and the former tier 1 bcs still haven't caught up to mineral prices.

That's not the point. The point is they correlate very strongly to price changes in everything so to the person who wishes to protect himself against inflation, IOW making sure his isk buys him the same stuff six months from now as it does today, it is the best hedge IMHO.



The tritanium market in Jita alone is something to the tune of 120B/day, and that's one mineral in one trade hub. I can't see the difficulty in liquidating 100B over a week. And no I haven't performed that specific operation but I have manipulated several smaller markets so I know how they work.

The closest thing to my inflation hedge is my inflation lawn and the city's inflation sidewalk.

Hi

After looking at many items on the market ie ships, minerals , moduals - Ive come to the conclusion that ..

1. Plex has the closest probability to preserving your ISK buying power in a passive sense. Also it has the added feature of being a reasonable currency hedge ! ( Iam looking @ you Canadian / Aussie dollar )

2. A rare & highly sort after ship that will never be re-released eg Guardian Vexor or Silver Magnate etc ... will generally rise in value as the economy continues to grow ! ( and like wise fall if and when EVE reaches peak ISK )

So those are my thoughts .. any further comments ?

And thanks for all the input.

Personally I'd split my isk into 3 piles. Ice, a mix of Cheap battleships and the like (basically under priced minerals), and plex. One of the 3 will have gained in value when you come back, and you can ride out the other 2 cycles.

PLEX is the closest, as it should rise with inflation via CCP. Now keep in mind the correlation isn't perfect as there is a time lag between the market and when CCP will respond.

Sure about that? People used to say that at 400, 500. I think CCP's concern is the rate of increase vrs any particular price level. That was the impression I got from the FanFest presentation this year.