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Veteran Space-pleb seeking some trade advice
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Janitor Jones
Doomheim
#1 - 2011-12-07 05:15:15 UTC
Alright ladies and gents, I'll admit it. My main, first and only, character has been around since 2007 and at no point have I been "space-rich." It's a sad fact and something I'm not ready to publicly admit on that character, hence the alt here.

I've tried almost every activity know to pod-pilots out there; from belt ratting, missions everywhere highsec-null, exploration, anomalies, C1-3 wormholes, and even set myself up with a bunch of research agents for the coveted "passive income," stream. The trouble is, I have and will always be a diligent family man and I don't have the time to seriously put my nose to the grind-stone most days. If I am quite fortunate I can log about 1-2 hours a night and once in a blue moon I can be on for 4+ hours, which I devote mostly to various pvp ops.

At this point it seems as though trading is my last, possibly best, hope to get the old wallet balance moving in the right direction again and with consistency. The alternatives as I see it involve a lot of industry, something I loathe, and alts, which I loathe even more. So, pardon that lengthy introduction if you will and I'll get on with the questions.


  • Given a meager seed-fund of around 500mil and assuming I have no trade skills yet, but very high standings with my target corp/faction station(s): Is it possible to turn any kind of profit from either station trading or arbitrage?

  • Which would you consider more valuable: Having excellent standings with two factions or good standings with all four? In other words, do the marginal tax breaks make up for being limited in location, or do you find flexibility to be superior?

  • I'm not especially program savvy. Should I brush up on my spreadsheet-fu or are there any third party programs that can help me compile and analyze market data?

  • Finally, if any of you have experience or wisdom you'd like to pass on concerning trading on a limited schedule I would love to hear it.


(Sorry for the wall of text.)
Tekota
The Freighter Factory
#2 - 2011-12-07 07:31:19 UTC  |  Edited by: Tekota
Firstly, "space rich" is subjective. I'm willing to bet you've spent hundreds of billions over the years on sparkly explosions and neat projects. The folks you may consider space rich may not have had half as varied an Eve life as you, their wealth coming as much from simply not spending on fun.

Janitor Jones wrote:

  • Given a meager seed-fund of around 500mil and assuming I have no trade skills yet, but very high standings with my target corp/faction station(s): Is it possible to turn any kind of profit from either station trading or arbitrage?


    • Yes. More than possible. I'd aim to get Accounting and Broker Relations skills up when you can, level 4 will do for now but level 5 is a worthwhile investment. Don't let that stop you from trading in the meantime whilst those skills are training though. Aside from those skills, get the ones that allow you to have as many open order slots as you need - I survive perfectly well on 50 or so market slots, I know others who manage hundreds, others who are happy with no more than 10 or 20. Ie. train those skills as you find you need them, depening on the trading style you find works best for you.

    Janitor Jones wrote:

  • Which would you consider more valuable: Having excellent standings with two factions or good standings with all four? In other words, do the marginal tax breaks make up for being limited in location, or do you find flexibility to be superior?


    • Standings form one of those last little measures to shave some more cost off trading, they are not essential by any means, so long as your standings allow you to travel, and your main station (which, lets face it will likely be Jita - Cal Navy / Cal faction) doesn't hate you you'll be fine.

    Janitor Jones wrote:

  • I'm not especially program savvy. Should I brush up on my spreadsheet-fu or are there any third party programs that can help me compile and analyze market data?


    • There are several third party programs, but they can be quite indepth; I'd advise starting out manually and seeking out programs and spreadsheets to fill needs as you find them rather than start with a program and mould your play style around them.

    Janitor Jones wrote:

  • Finally, if any of you have experience or wisdom you'd like to pass on concerning trading on a limited schedule I would love to hear it.


    • Get a calculator (or use the one in the eve client, though the lack of thousand seperator in that one personally infuriates me). Get into the habit of thinking "what do I have to sell this for to break even?". As a very rough rule, multiply your buy price by 1.03 and treat the result as your minimum sell price. That 1.03 calculation figures 3% for your taxes and fees - 1% to set up a buy order, 1% to set up a sell order, 1% sales tax. Now that's very rough and ready but it's a useful first step - check the percent charged on broker fees, depending on your standings and Broker Relations skill that can go way down to 0.4% and lower; sales tax can be reduced with the Accounting skill down to 0.5%. So overall you can easily make that calculation one of multiply by 1.015 or lower.

    Once you've gotten into the habit of working out break even points the first question is usually "should I buy my goods elsewhere and haul someplace else or should I buy and sell in the same station?" The first approach will generally yield better margins, the second will save more time, and time is money. You can of course combine both approaches.
    Pookoko
    Sigma Sagittarii Inc.
    #3 - 2011-12-07 10:05:53 UTC
    I'n on the same boat as you, being afamily man and all that- our play time is similar too.

    Where you can minimise the time spent on updating orders is by choosing higher value low volume items. Look at 5% implants for example (dont jump onto it though before you study it not all implants are good). Train margin trading skill so you can make more out of your capital too. Another easy method is buying named modules from mission hub and selling them where they are in demand. Contracts can be profitable as well once you have aome capital. Keep an eye on the sell order forum (while at work preferably as not to cut into your play time lol) and buy faction/deadspace items cheap to sell latet. If you have vern exploring before you may already have the experience to notice it when something comes up cheap.

    Also get a smartphone so you can read forums while not playing ;) i do all my 'studies' while communiting so when i am home logging in i get straight into action no need to sit there trying to think up plans.

    Have fun!
    Janitor Jones
    Doomheim
    #4 - 2011-12-07 19:14:36 UTC
    Thanks for the advice you two, very insightful. Smile
    Grayclay
    Derp Company
    Get Off My Lawn
    #5 - 2011-12-07 22:07:47 UTC
    1) I started market trading at 50mil and peaked at 1.2bil. The times I have returned to market trading and had a sizable wallet like yours, its such a major boon and makes it SO much more easy. My advice here is to start small until you get comfortable with managing orders and manipulating the market, in both price and just basic UI. Eventually it becomes second-hand nature/muscle memory, and the only real challenge is finding new **** to trade.

    2) EMMA used to be rather good, I think it has become defunct now though. Check the eve wiki, there is an entire section on market/wallet tools. The only time I've used a spreadsheet in this game was because I wanted to challenge myself and make one from scratch (it was for building a carrier). There are so many tools out there for the industrial/market side of EvE it makes spreadsheets redundant.

    3) My advice: Think about how much investment of time you want to put into what you do. My biggest reason for market trading and production is to get rich, but I hate hate HATE feeling like its a second job, so my entire focus is on minimizing time spent doing it. Ultimately it becomes a trade off between time spent and money made. My own area of expertise is station trading in market hubs (buy low, sell high, rinse and repeat indefinitely). I tried doing regional buy orders, which make more money, but put you in a position of making 26 jumps around the region in a ******* Badger. Its the difference between logging on for 15 minutes a day, or a few times a day, to change your sell and buy order prices, and logging in for 3 hours every other day to mindlessly jump from system to system.

    Feel free to message me for any help you need. I'm by no means a pro, but I know more or less how this stuff works, and, more importantly, I hate the marketeer mentality of keeping everything a secret. I have no qualms with telling you exactly what to buy, how much of, and where, just gotta ask.
    Terajima Kazumi
    Perkone
    Caldari State
    #6 - 2011-12-08 10:35:35 UTC
    I started with around 500m and currently keep around 15 billion on my trader, so your seed money is definitely sufficient.

    I stick to station trading myself, as it's a lot of work to compare buy orders and transport commodities between markets. If you have the time to invest, inter-regional trading will make you more money with the capital you have, but you can probably make more per hour invested by station trading. Trade skills are nice, standings don't make a huge difference. Spreadsheets will work fine. Spread your ISK around as many orders as you care to manage; this increases the likelihood that you'll find the golden eggs and mitigates the fallout when the value of a commodity tanks.

    Good luck! It's not work-free ISK, but there is something satisfying about making money without ever undocking.
    Pika Pedel
    Doomheim
    #7 - 2011-12-09 03:26:56 UTC  |  Edited by: Pika Pedel
    My trading began with absolutely no trade skills and a useless alt who had nothing to do but fly around in a bestower. One night I got bored waiting around for some fleet op to get rolling and funneled a million to the useless alt, just to see how much I could turn it into before the titan pilot sent our fleet on it's way.

    The next day I was up to about 20mil and somewhat amused by the ease of which all this isk was flowing in. I sent another 100mil to the alt and decided to gun for 1bil by the end of the week (missed the mark by a few million). At that point, I was essentially won over by the trading life. I abandoned the skill plan I had for useless-bestower-alt and set him to work on trade skills. After a while 90% of my time in-game was fiddling with market orders or scheming up a nice arbitrage haul. I ended up selling another one of my alts to fuel the trading furnace and today i've got two tycoon characters moving isk non-stop.

    The very best thing about trading is just how ridiculously easy it is to start. There are plenty of things out there that even a character with no skills and mediocre standings can turn a good profit on (not that the volume or margin will be high). Personally, I really don't like training trade, science, or indy skills on a combat character, but it wouldn't take much for you to dial in the necessary skills. A few weeks is all it takes and you're essentially capped on the trade skills for station work.