Market Discussions

MNs were the first major isk earner for me and although its been years since I traded them regularly I keep an eye on the market as a good one to learn from and map with a significant period of data. I sometimes post asking for help understanding what's going on but in five years of MD this is going to be my first speculation suggestion! While I have had moderate success historically while speculating I am far from a master of the art so the following comes with all sorts of caveats, but

BUY NANORIBBONS NOW! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, BUY, BUY, BUY!

For those who don't know, MNs are the main component for T3 ships and subs. They briefly spiked hard on the news that nanoribbon usage would be dramatically increased in the production of 60% of T3 subsystems plus the news of the introduction of T3 destroyers before being manipulated back down to near historic lows. They are currently being aggressively held down to the current price (note the big blocking sell orders plus the small orders giving the illusion of lots of competition for sales) but when that pressure is taken off they will spike and settle at a considerably higher price (exactly where is anyone's guess but I suspect at least 25% above where they are now). The price of all the T3 products has gone up and is holding at the newer prices and it seems inevitable that the raw materials will follow them up (unless I have missed something big).

Full disclosure: I am sitting on a very small pile myself (only 4bil worth) but won't be speculating further as all my cash is tied up in my daily trading.

You bought on the initial spike I'm guessing, before the aggressive downwards move began. I'm pretty sure the current price point is where you want to stock up.

Chart shows very strong support at 3.5.

you want steal my iskies!

Anyone who buys on the basis of my reputation deserves to lose isk, whatever the outcome. But the new big nanoribbon sink from ALL subs now needing the same mats as offensive and defensive subs, plus the effect of T3 destroyers, combined with the pretty obvious downwards manipulation and the near historic low price makes it look like a pretty decent bet to me.

Jerry's point about the new WH systems is not unreasonable but unless those systems draw a very large number of extra people into wormholes I don't see them making a difference. Number of systems is not relevant, only number of wormhole pilots. Also, the new systems will be much harder to farm due to lack of POSes.

What it will require, though, is lots of people doing that who wouldn't be living in WH space anyway. And I'm guessing that small operations living out of depos are not going to bring in huge numbers compared to the people running escalations from their home systems. I could be wrong of course.



The fact that the sells are not being updated is kind of the give-away. The pattern of stacking the sell list with very large numbers of relatively small orders backed by blocking orders at key points is exactly what you see with a downwards manipulation. Generally people do update their sells if they are trying to shift their goods. When they leave them for days and don't compete for the top spot they aren't trying to sell but to discourage people from selling at a higher price. At least, that's what I've seen on the big manipulations I've watched in the past, most notably the big pushes down during the tech boom that were then followed by sweeps up.

Look at those orders around 3,770,000 that haven't been updated for 5 days. Even when the sell price was only 1000 isk less the people who parked those orders were not trying to compete for the top spot to sell. They just set a spread of orders and left them there for days. Building up a large line of that kind of order creates an impression of downwards momentum and encourages people to not wait for a rise but to undercut or sell to buys. You can also tell that the line of orders is being deliberately spread out by the unmoving sell orders for single digit and very low double digit numbers of MNs that are bulking out the list (e.g. two sell orders for 1 unit at 3.758 that were set one minute apart). Under normal conditions that kind of order is incredibly rare but at the moment the list is full of them.

At the same time, the big unmoving stacks of 1000+ (including a 4.5k blocking order at 3.861 and another 4.5k units at 4.149) discourage anyone from trying to lift the market before the manipulator is ready. If you are marketing your goods to sell, that's not how you list them.

I suspect supply is too high currently for these to go all that high.

Now, if two or three big wormhole entities get evicted, our if a few capital escalation fleets get slaughtered - I'm in.

I trust him. Investing 5b isk in ribbons.

Here's a hot tip while your on it. Intercalated fullerene sheets and emergent items also. Buy lots and payout in a week.

What exactly was, is manipulated and how?
If its so "clearly" than why do i have problems seeing any "manipulation" at all, all i see is a curve that did follow supply and demand.