That out of the way….

There are many ways to make your fortune in Eve, and while trading is the least SP intensive – it’s the most personal-skill intensive.  With such a vast and varied market, and so many people competing so heavily in it, it’s easy for new traders to feel overwhelmed.  This article will attempt to break down the basic forms of trading, and give advice as to how to proceed in them.  However, none of this information is an “I win” tutorial – it will still require the reader to be thoughtful, diligent, and self-motivated.

First – the most basic principals.

#1. Avoid buying from a sell order, or selling to a buy order.   While sometimes this is a valid idea, most often it represents a dent to your profit margins.  When you want an item, place a buy order for it.  When you want to profit from an item, place a sell order on it. (Ed. – Unless you want speed, for time-based opportunities.)

#2. Never turn the drive for more profits into a job.  Even if you’re bad at the various isk-earning opportunities, isk will come with time.  Stick with “fun” over “efficiency” – even though this guide may make recommendations on what is most efficient, ignore them when they conflict with your enjoyment.

#3. Remember that all buys/sells are subject to taxation and broker fees.  The margin of an item must cover this amount, or you will be trading at a loss.  The tax/broker fee amount is visible on your wallet screen, at the bottom of the “Orders” tab.

#4. High margins (a large difference between the price to buy something and the price to sell it) are nice, but the item’s velocity is far more important to your profits.   Velocity here refers to the rate at which your buy order will be filled, then your sell order on the same item purchased.  Trading 1,000,000 items with a 10k margin per day is far better than 1 item with a 1,000,000 margin.

Now, on to specifics.

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Import/Export Trading

The first, and most common form of trade for newer players is referred to as “import/export trading“. (Ed.- Some would contend that station trading is more common)

Simply put, this form of trading involves placing a buy order at location A, then moving the items to location B, where a sell order is placed.  The average price on the item is obviously lower at A than B.  While it is possible to place courier contracts to have the items moved for you, early-on this represents a dent in your profitability.

Allow me to build a hypothetical import/export trader.  Please note, at each hypothetical “stop” in this trade, the trader would check to assure his orders were the “top” in that particular market.

Trade hubs represent a large quantity of finished goods at lower-than-average price, and a large demand for raw goods at a higher than average price.

Our hypothetical trader places a large buy order on cruise missiles in Jita, which is filled in a few hours.  These missiles are hauled to a backwater mission hub, too far to be a convenient trip to Jita for the mission runners.  The missiles are relisted on the mission-hub market at a substantial markup.

While waiting for the missiles to sell, the trader places a large buy order on every type of salvage he can afford to, then returns to Jita.  Back in the trade hub, a new buy order is placed for more missiles.

The trader now has missiles selling, missiles buying, and salvage buying.

The second missile buy order fills within a few hours, and the new missiles are loaded up and taken to the mission-hub.  By now, a substantial amount of salvage has filled into the appropriate orders, and the missiles will have largely sold off.  Offloading the new missiles on a new sell order, the trader loads up the salvage and heads back to Jita again.

The salvage is now relisted as a sell order in Jita (again, at a substantial markup), and a new order for missiles is placed.  Repeat ad infinitum.

Obviously – this method requires a lot of hauling time, but represents the best combination of velocity and margins possible for newer traders.

Also, there are tricks to eliminate some of the “slack time” in this haul-fest.  While traveling, look for industrialist activity.   If you see a strong sign of production in a given system, place a buy order on minerals in your mission-hub, then place a sell order on those minerals off in the industry location.  Place another buy order on the produce from that industry hub – typically cheap T1 frigates and cruisers – and make hauling that kit part of your return trip to Jita – where it will all sell at substantial markup, giving multiple points of profit to the trip.

All of the above is, of course, hypothetical – but it is easy to quickly see how a bit of market research along the hauling route can create several profitable stops.  The important thing is to learn the differing demands of differing areas.  Trade hubs are always hungry for raw materials and finish products, but have lots of consumables.  Mission hubs are always hungry for consumables, but have lots of raw materials.   Industry hubs are always hungry for minerals, but have lots of finished products.  Spend a bit of time looking over the market in each system you pass through, and learn the levels of demands, and how they vary.

—————————————-

Station Trading

The next form of trading is known as “Station Trading“

This type of trading can be considerably less work than import/export, or considerably more – all depending on your own market research.

In it’s most basic form – one settles down in a trade hub, places buy orders on items, then resells those items at that station at a markup.

In this type of trading, there’s really two factors that make-or-break success.  A focus on velocity over margin is important, (Ed. – Unfortunately not a hard and fast rule. In the end, it is up to you to decide if it is profitable.) and as much diversification as can be afforded.

In any trade hub – you will not alone in trying to station trade.  There will be many others trying to top your orders, some of them willing to update their orders for 18+ hours a day.  But you don’t have to defeat these people – only bypass them.

In the major trade hubs, and especially Jita, massive amounts of items change hands.  Even the most fastidious order-updating-fiend will occasionally have his order filled, and the order below his, and the order below that – because of the sheer volume of items being offloaded.

This type of velocity is where diversification really pays off.  While staying near the top on just one item can require constant order-monitoring, staying near the top on at least a few of 30-40 different items is quite easy.  Place your orders over a wide variety, and there will always be at least some actively selling or buying.  While updating your orders 23/7 would represent more profit – it’s far more work than is necessary.  A widely diversified basket of items will require only a few minutes per day (or as your experience and capital grows, per week).

But what to invest in, specifically?

Firstly, always look at the amount of items being bought or sold in a given time period.  I can not stress enough, you want this amount to be as high as possible.

But it’s not enough for there to be a lot of sales only, or a lot of buys only.  Ideally, you want a mix between the two – and fortunately, the market can give you this information.

By pulling up the market details for a specific item, then going to the “Price History” tab – we’re presented with quite a bit of information.  Near the bottom are a series of bars, showing how many of that item are traded per given time period.  The red line represents a “5 day average” on the trade price of the item, the green line a “20 day average“.

The average pricing lines are the important bit, here – a line that is almost exactly in the middle of the graph shows an item that is being bought exactly as much as it’s being sold, perfect for station trading.  A line near the bottom means your buy orders will fill quickly, but your sell orders will take very long.  A line near the top means the reverse.  When station trading – an average near the center is always ideal, though not required.

The final piece of information on this screen that we’ll examine is the Donchian channel – which is the redish-colored swath painted across the chart.  The top of this mark represents the most expensive sell order that was filled.  The bottom represents the cheapest buy order that was filled.  This gives a generalized idea on the margin of an item – but also on the volatility of that item’s price – or how likely an item is to fluctuate in a given time period.

So, as a station trader – build a wide basket of items that fit the criteria described above.  Trade in them for a week or two, then evaluate the numbers on each item individually.  See which items were high profit, which were poor.  Trim away the poor, and pick new items.  Repeating this process over and over gives one a widely diversified, high performing basket of trade items that can quickly amount to massive amounts of income – for a minimal amount of work.

But, in the end, you’re not restricted to Import/Export Trading, nor to Station Trading – you can do both.  You can supplement them by looking for good grabs in the contracts screen.  You can buy minerals to build your own produce, then sell that at an even greater markup.  You can speculate on price shifts, hoarding away materials on the hopes that the market swings your way.  Eve is a sandbox game, and the market reflects this – but with this little bit of information, you’re prepared to start your own sandpile.

-Lui Kai

Indeed it has been a while since I’ve been able to post on the SCC. Though I suspect that is one such consequence of the moving apartments/girlfriend forgetting to pay the internet bill package. Alas, I’ve finally managed to secure a stable internet connection and a couple of spare minutes to call my own. I would like to share with you a story that I feel accurately represents our particular niche in Eve. For those of you trying to balance a real life romance with your illicit Eve relations, I dare say you might relate =P.

It all started about a week ago. My girlfriend, interested in understanding the game on which I’ve spent more and more of my time, decided to conduct her own research. This took the form of several hours on youtube, browsing videos documenting the major events of New Eden history. You know the type, massive ship battles, epic conflicts, sinister betrayal, and the like.

After ascertaining a basic sense of what makes EvE “Eve,” she approached me and revealed what she had been doing. Eager to show off her newfound knowledge, she turned her computer around to show one of the token Northern Coalition you tube movies, and asked if this is what I did in Eve. Not wanting to disappoint her, I set out to try and delicately explain my professional activities in game.

But I could not find the words. My girlfriend was asking if I flew massive ships into battle with other massive ships, launching missiles and railguns and participating in sieges of player owned stations. The enthusiasm quickly ran from her face as I informed her that, au lieu of that, I spent my time in the “New York” of New Eden updating orders, networking deals, and looking for that next great opportunity. Her reaction was quite simple: “You pay to play a game where you change orders by 0.01 ISK and talk about other people’s adventures?”

Try as I might, I had a hard time defending my position. The fact that I make enough ISK to pay the monthly subscription with ingame currency failed to have any effect whatsoever. The mention that I actually trade the modules and ships flown by the pilots in the youtube videos impressed her about as much as the latest Britney Spears cd. And it got me thinking: Outside of the select few of us who enjoy what we do, are our workings ridiculous by other gamer’s standards? Are we reduced to working a job required by every other profession, required, but not respected? I shall have to ponder these questions. Amidst a plentiful array of Jita 4—4 updates of course =P.

-L

Chat was fun and had just re-logged after setting some S&I jobs on an alt. I then noticed my wallet appeared to be malfunctioning, it was displaying an additional digit.

Rubbing my eyes, I went to recheck exactly what happened and this was what I found:

(Yes, 800mil. Normally goes from anything between 1-1.5mil, fyi)

What can we learn by this? Sort by price. Not by the bonkers default the market gives: by jumps and then some.

No I did not send it back. Finders Keepers.

Frantically, I started the download and proceeded to pace up and down my small studio room while the growing impatience mounted. After what seemed to be an eternity, my computer signaled the download complete, and with beer in hand, I embarked on what was to be an epic forty minute EvE adventure.

From the first scene onwards, the laugher was uncontrollable. All attempts at preserving my dignity were, judging from my girlfriend’s incessant jaw-dropped gaping, jettisoned out the proverbial window. The film is nothing less than a masterpiece, a contribution to the intensely deep EvE community that will easily be remembered for years to come.

Old characters return, new characters are introduced, and they all come together to form a tightly woven, surprisingly profound story of privateer meandering, political intrigue, and galactic terrorism. Indeed, the film will have you laughing, lamenting, and cheering as the Clear Skies crew hesitantly pursues an adventure worthy of a AAA budget Hollywood blockbuster.

Perhaps the most profound part of it all is the humble origin from which the film emerges. This is not the work of a professional studio (though the quality would easily have you believing otherwise), nor is it the product of a large entity of individuals. Clear Skies 2 is nothing more than an intensive labor of love created by players, about players, for players. The amount of man hours that had to have gone into such a production is absolutely staggering, which begs the question, how many other MMOs generate the types of player-created works we see in Eve?

Not only is Clear Skies 2 an absolutely fantastic film in its own right, it is also a testament to what EvE has, despite a rough beginning and an irritatingly cluttered genre, managed to achieve over the years. It is because of this essence, this “thing,” that players of other MMOs lurk, in secret, on the EvE forums, that the EvE economy is studied by the business schools at the university level, and that the game has managed to, more than once, appear on the BBC. EvE is something special, something unique, and there is nothing more appropriate to represent such a special accomplish than Clear Skies 2.

Clear Skies 2 can be downloaded via torrent at the following URL:

http://dl.eve-files.com/media/corp/JohnRourke/Clear_Skies2.wmv

Hey mates,

Someone in the SCC pointed out that I had never properly introduced myself. While I do admire the balls out blitzkrieg approach in regards to writing, I will go ahead and properly introduce myself to the SCC community.

In game I am a Jita-based trader with way too much time to update orders. My initial Jita experience left something to be desired, but it has since grown on me. I started a column entitled “The ISK Keeper,” which reports on my various adventures and experience throughout the galaxy. I have posted the first one on the SCC, and will (get around to posting the second). I envision releasing installments at monthly intervals, though that is subject to change.

Outside of Eve (because I know you’re curious), let me just say that I speak a good French and decent Spanish, I’ve been gaming for a long time, and I am currently marooned in Europe awaiting extraction =P

I was asked to write for the SCC, an offer I quickly accepted. I’ve always enjoyed writing, generally about subjects that interest me. I would say Eve falls under this category =P There are a great many subjects I hope to touch on in the coming months, ranging from the Lemming quotient to the latest and greatest evolutions in the John Doe chronicles. I will do my best to post when I can, as often as I can, in the interest of providing interesting and reliable information to those who are most interested.

Feel free to convo me in game or send me an evemail, and I will do my best to get in contact with you. Considering the absurd amount of time I spend docked in Jita 4–4, you will most likely be doing me a favor. If you are interested in providing information (scandals are always popular) or would like to see us address a certain subject, don’t hesitate to get in touch. With that said, I look forward to the opportunity of working both with the esteemed SCC staff and for their qualitative supporters. Fly safe!

-L

(Editor: Edited in your mugshot. =p)

She quickly assured me that there was no end of the world present, though the reassurance was slow to come. Nor did it help matters that the next three hours also saw the complete absence of anything remotely resembling competition. Indeed I had grown so accustomed to the various twats .01ing me that their very absence proved more than unsettling.

Just when thought I had survived another Jita 4–4 primetime, and could then coast through the wee hours of the night, the flood gates opened and from them emerged every questionable penny hoarding vagabond determined only to undercut my orders at whatever personal cost to themselves. This has persisted through the late evening hours and into the early twilight time slot. I attribute my throbbing headache to these newfound psychological “tactics,” as I have very nearly considered logging off for the rest of the night.

One thing is for sure. Jita 4–4 is back to normal.

-L

I want to first inform people that will most likely end up quite long in length. Let it be known that I seek neither praise nor admiration, nor compassion, nor acceptance into what appears to be a highly skilled and slightly elitist community. My objectives for this post, my mani-manifesto, if you will (points for naming the reference) are simple in nature: To offer up a bit of real information on the subject of trading in New Eden for players who have yet to enter the fray, but would someday like to; and to evoke the harsh, albeit erudite criticism of the eve market tycoons. Apart from the “buy low, high” mentality often repeated on the forums, both my successes and my failures have come to pass by my own, unguided experimentation. Are my experiences worthy of being shared amongst such longstanding members of the EvE Market community? You be the judge.

First and compulsory, a bit of background information. I have played EvE Online for close to 3 months, by my count. After several failed tutorial attempts, something within me “clicked,” and I finally came to understand both the profound depth and magnitude of possibility found within such a unique and memorable virtual world. My life is a pilot has been a roller coaster since.

Within two days of starting, I was recruited by a rather eccentric individual named Lee Anderson. He recruited me into his corp, promising me riches, power, and fame. If that isn’t why we all joined EvE in the first place, than I don’t know what is. Reluctantly, I accepted his invitation and become 2nd commanding officer of our two man corp. Within days (this is when I learned of his questionable integrity and downright annoying demeanor), we had both quadrupled our number of pilots, and become victim to a wardec by Lee’s former corporation. Fearing for our lives (though mainly his Drake), he led us new pilots across the galaxy to a system called Stacmon. He had arranged for his corporation to merge with an academy sponsored by the Alliance now corporation, Infestation.

Their goals were in league with most standard academies: Train the newbies in hordes and have first pick at la crème de la crème. It was here I made my first genuine friendships in EvE. We learned about flying in a fleet, can flipping, combating can flipping, and low-sec and nul-sec rules of engagement. It was more than any newbie could have ever asked for, and more than sufficient entertainment to get those pesky learning skills out of the way. Life was simple, and I was happy.

It was here (I’m sure you’re all wondering “when the hell is he going to talk about trading???” right about now) I first thought about getting into trading. Truth be told, the idea of making money from nothing had excited me since the beginning, and was one of the most intriguing aspects that EvE Online had to offer. With my paper and pen ready, my Google search ready to go, and my life savings of 1.6 million isk ready to be exploded into the economy, I figured I was good to go.

As you may have expected, that momentum came to a screeching halt almost as soon as it had begun. Stacmon was, except for the occasional skill book run in Aidart, was all I knew in life. How was I supposed to go about finding these great deals and suckering people into paying more than I did? Alas, my journey seemed to be finished before it had even begun. That is when Miner202 (Smudge) let me in on the best kept secret in the EvE market: EvE Central.

Perfect! A massive database showing every buy order and sell order in the galaxy. This is just what I needed! A detailed list showing what people are willing to sell, and for how much they are willing to buy. I quickly set out looking for deals and margins on which to put my newly purchased Badger Mark 2 to use. “Reactive Plating II” showed a sell order of 14 units at 150,000 p/u. A mere 26 jumps away, someone was looking to purchase 15 units for 200,000 ISK p/u. After running the numbers, I gasped in awe at the prospect of pocketing nearly a million ISK just for buying it and shipping it across the galaxy. Trading is too easy!

I warp, as fast as I can (sure that someone was going to spot this incredible offer and swipe it from under my feet), to the sell order system. Fortunately, I arrived in time, move to purchase all the units…only to realize I haven’t nearly enough ISK. No! I’m, at this point, drowning in papers of future trading plans that were to be my livelihood for the rest of my EvE career. Scrambling as fast as humanly possible, I start a private conversation a corp mate. I frantically tell him of my situation, admit that it is a lot of ISK and I would completely understand if he didn’t have that much liquid, and assure him of both my trustworthiness and the validity of my plan. Hell, I even through in a 10% interest incentive. I was, after all, looking to be a professional someday.

He “reluctantly” agrees (I’m sure he was laughing hysterically, considering he’s a billionaire) to my business plan, and loans me the money. I rush to the market screen, once again sure that said items would be gone. They were not. I purchased them, loaded them into my hauler (to rushed to realize that they took up hardly any space at all and I should have most definitely brought my kestrel), and proceeded like a madman to the target system. Victory was to be mine!

I unload my cargo with the most shit-eating grin on my face. Dreaming of what I’m going to spend my excessive profits on, click the sell button. “There are no buy orders for this item in this region.” Dismay, again, took me. My savings, my entire livelihood, had been invested in this venture, this first economic adventure of such a hopeful individual. What’s more, I owed more money to my corp mate than I could ever foresee myself making through “legitimate” means. Pleading to my corpmate about the situation, he agreed to purchase them for what I did myself. It was a very kind gesture, and also my first economic lesson: Do not rely on Eve Central being up-to-date.

Barely avoiding economic ruin, I thought to keep a low profile for a while. Tempting the gods was, after all, not the greatest of ideas. I did get involved in some very light missile trading, but commerce was slow and margins were slim. Between that and low-sec Bantam mining, I managed to amass an intimidating 6.0 million isk. On top of the world and finally confident in my EvE playing abilities, I decided that monsieur marché’ and I were going to have another go.

My glorious, albeit hazardous, low-sec mining ventures did successfully teach me one thing: Minerals are the nutz. I had become fascinated by the sheer competition found in the mineral trade. People would stop at nothing to acquire what they needed, or sell what they no longer wanted. I decided that the mineral market was to be my next business venture. After nodding at a few pages of numbers and pretending to myself they made sense, Megacyte and Zydrine seemed like an excellent commodity with which to get involved. They were extremely valuable p/u and took up hardly any space. EvE central showed masses of cheaply priced minerals in 0.0 space. Thus was my new business venture born: With my newly acquired and wisely fitted smuggling kestrel (1 warp stab, 1 ab, shield hardener, and two overdrives) which interestingly enough resembled the Millennium Falcon, I would proceed undetected into 0.0 sec space, “liberate” these stacks of minerals, and take them to Jita to sell at a massive, incomprehensible profit. My Dr. Evil laugh that day was, safe to say, absolutely earth shattering.

The market was, at this point in time, quite a bit weird. Buy orders for zydrine and megacyte were consistently higher than the highest sell orders, by very large margins. Never, though, did I stop to ask why, for there was money to be made. Actually, I did quite well in this venture, risking only a few jumps into 0.0 and investing only one half of my total capital at any one time. Both buy and sell orders seemed unlimited in supply and no one could lock and engage my Kestrel successfully before warping. The operation actually seemed flawless. So flawless that I decided to do a massive run and invest everything I owned. As they say, you have to spend money to make money. Or was that high risk high rewards? Not that it matters anymore, as I was so distracted by my monetary awesomeness that I barely noticed my ship abruptly come out of warp and stop amidst a massive blue bubble. It was arguably one of the more impressive graphical features I had seen in EvE.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have time to admire it, as several ships began targeting and starting their approach. No prob!, I thought, as I went for my warp button. I guess everyone learns one way or another what it means to get trapped in a warp bubble, and I just happened upon the hard way. My Caldari Kestrel issue Millennium Falcon was blasted to space dust, as was my surprisingly fragile pod. After reviving in Empire space, my anger quickly turned to relief, as I realized they had popped me on the to-buy trip, and not my return. Looking at my wallet and admiring how I had singlehandedly turned five or so million into twenty-five, I decided that the risks no longer outweighed the ISK to be made. It was at this juncture that operation “Mineral Liberation” came to a close.

No sooner than my return to Stacmon did I learn that epic political undertakings had taken place, and our precious academy was to be merged into a mega corporation, which, in turn, would be merged into a mega alliance. Our instructors insisted that we would not be forgotten, that our mission would go on, and that there truly was no better place to learn to play than 0.0. Ignorantly trusting them on their word alone, I packed up my surrounds, said adieu to my beloved Stacmon, and prepared to make the 60-odd jump journey to our new HQ.

I’ll skip over most of my stay there, as it isn’t much relevant to this post. However, my items were never delivered, our most trusted instructors abandoned us in favor of riches and fame in 0.0, and we (or at least I) found ourselves abandoned and without purpose. I spent two weeks merely looting other people’s rat wrecks, since there was nothing else I was even remotely skilled for. Deciding enough was enough, I came to the conclusion that I would need to plan my escape, and this group of power mongering wankers would not take kindly to my decision to leave.

Spending a massive 4.5 million on a badger mark 2 (I never received my badger and the economy is absurd out there), I loaded all my recovered rat and watched local to make my escape. Confident that no one would harass me in the dead of night, I boarded my industrial and proceeded to sneak away. Not even 10 jumps in, an interceptor successfully locked and popped me. I was, once again, revived back in Empire space. Every *single* item I had ever accumulated was either lost, stolen, or trapped in a corrupt space station. I had 15 million ISK to my name and absolutely nothing else.

This started the point in my EvE career I refer to as the “Dark Age”. I don’t really know what I did, or why I did it. I logged on to train skills or mine, mostly. I got into some light trading, usually for very small margins, and these transactions started to amass a bit of pocket change over time. My trading was very by the books, fly to Jita, buy an item, fly back and resell it for more. I got into Modal Mega Ion cannons a bit, though they didn’t have a very good turnover time. Caldari Navy antimatter charge S was a real money maker, and people were willing to buy it for up to 1000ISK p/u in some systems, a huge markup of my 500 p/u purchase price. Slowly but surely, in large part thanks to my new mining osprey, I started to amass a bit of wealth, eventually hitting the 100million ISK mark. Thus, I decided to give trading one last chance.

I had spent hours upon hours perusing the forums, wondering how on Earth anyone ever traded in Jita. After all, Jita was where the cheapest of the cheap were sold, thus how could anyone ever hope to make a decent margin there? Nah, competition in Jita was unattainable, incomprehensible, for the heavenly few with nigh trillions to their name. I would do what I always did, buy low and sell high.

I made a move from my quick bar to my item of choice, to notice some peculiar numbers. First, there were hardly any available in Jita (unfortunately, since the market is starting to come back down, the exact module will have to remain a secret). Second, prices had reached an all time low. I’m not sure what sparked it, but I felt this immense pressure to do something real in EvE, to throw down my shackles and rise up against the oppressor I had known to call the EvE Market.

I made a play, a (for me), absolutely huge economic play. I spent my life savings and bought up the entire market for 200,000k ISK p/u each. Ignoring the possible ramifications of my impulsive actions, I relisted 20% of my stack…at 4 times the price I had bought them for. Not knowing exactly how, I had become the *sole* supplier of this particular module in Jita, the economic New York of New Eden at four time the price they were “supposed” to go for. Kicking myself for my stupidity, I logged off in disappointment.

Nothing could have prepared me for the surprise that awaited me. I had sold half of the stack I had put up for sale. What’s more, it seemed that every tool in the galaxy decided to list their modules at *my* prices. Yes, my price had become the new standard by which everyone created their listings. Due to my advantageous position, I could undercut the competition exponentially. After all, anything above 200k was profit. I ended up selling every unit I had purchased, quadrupling my money in the process. Now *this* was trading at its.

After a few weeks, the market would stabilize, and I would quite simply repeat the process. No one seemed to catch on to the fact that the price would quadruple in price for no apparent reason. Every few weeks, I doubling and even tripling my ISK in a way I could never do through mining or missioning alone. This led me to my last and most recent economic experiment. Could I actually inflate the market of an item so much that another individual would buy en masse from me at, again, inflated prices, if my price managed to undercut the going Jita rate?
The answer was an astounding yes. The first item I tried this with was a module something along the lines of a 425mm prototype cannon or something like that. A fair amount of units were available, at the very affordable standard of 200k ISK p/u. Wanting to test my theory and having the money to do so, I purchased every unit I could in Jita, relisted 10% of my stock as five different sell orders at three times the price I paid for them. After waiting several days for the market to “stabilize,” I sent out an evemail on the bulk mailing channel informing people I had to liquidate this stack of guns asap, and I’d be willing to sell them as a bulk contract @ 300 ISK p/u (300k p/u below the Jita “standard”). Expecting my evemail to go unanswered, I prepared myself to just eat the expense as a business expenditure.

To my surprise, the next day I had not one but five responses, all expressing interest in my stack of guns. Again, these are guns I paid 200k each for, held onto for three days, and then resold immediately at a 50% markup. Between this ploy and my more genuine trading every two or so weeks, I am quickly approaching one billion ISK. I know full well that that is still a trivial sum to many, but considering I was lost in space with 0 assets to my name, and considering I had been utterly vanquished by the market several times before, I consider it a personal victory.

Why did I write this? Well first I’d like to apologize for the length; I reckon I got a bit carried away. Thank you and felicitations if you have successfully reached the end of my post. As for my reasons…first I have come across post after post after post by new players looking for advice on how to get into trading. The vast majority of them go unanswered, fall upon deaf ears, or are met with an armada of sarcasm and dismissal. For those new players looking for real experiences relating to trading and commerce from someone who was and still is in your shoes, I decided to write this for you. Second, I would like to appeal to the true economic legends of New Eden, the rich of the rich who run banks, IPOs, and other amazingly complex financial ventures. To you all, what do you think of my methods? Do you consider it unethical to drastically raise the price of a module, despite the fact that that sharp increase is going to affect hundreds of honest pilots out there? Is it nigh scamming to unload hundreds of thousands of units worth of modules to a few honest speculators who are completely ignorant of the imminent market crash? Like I said in the beginning, I’m not seeking praise or ridicule, only discussion and criticism. I hope this post, this novel, was beneficial to someone in someway, and at the very least, was an entertaining-enough read =P

-Lecherito

The SCC-Lounge will do its best to keep this post updated with ‘must read’ threads of use to MDers. If you have any suggestions or any threads you wish to highlight to be added to the resource, please comment with the new submission or resource you feel would be useful for fellow players.

Last Updated: 2009-06-18
(ISO 8601)

Market Discussions General Questions Thread
(All questions should be directed here, the other threads are preserved here for posterity.)

Investing For Beginners
(Despite being stickied, no one reads. Do read this to be better informed.)

Trading 101
A guide to the EVE market and trading for all aspiring merchants

“What I’ve Learned So Far- Trading Guide for New Players by Sun Win”

” Enlarge Your Wallet!” By Fedjakeen

“Trading Advice FROM a Three-Week-Old Eve Player” by Rens PC

Learning to Trade

“Business Integrity in EvE” by Voltaire Leriel

“The Tricky Trade of Trading: Doin’ da Docked Deal” by Herko Kerghans
(Under skills forum)

Question and answer thread about the NPCs’ Trade Good economy

Question and answer thread about the NPCs’ Trade Good economy #2

Trading NPC goods

“Vasco’s Mobile Trading Post” trading suggestion

“What is the best fit to allow a trader to survive?” Q&A

Skill question: Procurement & Visibility

Defined Stock and Bond models for the EVE Market
A guide to the EVE Financial Instruments often mentioned in MD.

A Guide to Options for Raising Public and Private Capital
A further guide to the EVE Financial Instruments often mentioned in MD.

Key Concepts to Trading in EVE

Ships and Fits for Trading

Freighter Operations 101 (or ‘Reasons NOT to buy a freighter’)
Freighter != Making lots of ISK. Read this before you commit your 1Bil ISK.
(‘!=’ = Not Equal)

Market Templates and Related Information

Official IPO Template
A handy link here. The title says it all.

An IPO Guide
Linked in OP, but a handy link here. The title says it all.

Audits 101
Kazuo shares his knowledge in explaining audits

Guide to trust, reputation, and getting funding

Banks and Financial Institutions

EBank
The premier banking institution in EVE. Currently holds in excess of 2 Trillion ISK.

DBank
Second only to EBank, offers better rates than EBank with CDs.

GIBank
If you’re investing here while not being one of them, you have some serious problems.

General Market Information Sharing

The Trading Hubs of EVE

Trading channel on IRC

The ISK must flow ! A guide to EVE moneymaking.

EVE-Wiki: EVE’s Broker System

Broker Fee Calculations

Market Order Broker Fees Formula

Publically Listed Corporations and other useful links
(No longer updated)

Capital Ship and Component Construction Thread

Market Applications Utilising EVE API and Exports

EMMA
One of the best market tools available. 14 day trial with 100mil for a key after that.

EVEWalletAware
Freeware. A good alternative.

Open Source [Sexy] Offline Wallet
Ray’s market tool.

EVE-MEEP Version 2.4.2.2
The producer’s tool, don’t do S&I without it.

EVE Commander
A web based site for tracking your EVE characters and assets. Good when you can’t install programs. Fees applicable.

Support for the following programs appears to have been discontinued.

Use at your own risk

Eve-Graph

EvE iHelper

EVE-Income

Eve Trade Finder

EvE-Tycoon

Market Master

MarketMuch v1.0 – Order Analyzer

NavBot (Eve Trade Analyzer / Trade Route Finder)

EVETycoon

Capital Ships

Capital Ship Construction – co-operation thread
Listing of the manufacturers/traders of capital ship components (out of date)

Trade Analyzers

Kaladr’s EVE-Central Cross Region Market Browser and Trade Finder
(EVE-Central.com)

EVE-Markets.net
A Stock market view of EVE Online Commodities. Powered by EVE Central.

EVE-Metrics.com
Another Market tracker. Supports automated uploads of market details.

ISK MEDIC
An app to import market logs to search for areas to place products.

Starship Construction, Refining, POS Fuel spreadsheets
(No longer updated due to player leaving eve. Usefulness in doubt.)

Generic Market Tools

Market Discussion Cleaner
The best way to avoid trolling, flaming and warnings!

Stories, Blogs and Other Stuff from Market Discussions

Hexxx: Resume
Again, the title says it all. A bit of an advert but a good link source for some other useful information.

Blog of a Newbie Trader

Haiku Market Tips
For the days when you make so much isk, the creativity flows.

The ISK Keeper: Tales from a newbie trader
The ISK Keeper: I am trader
Two wonderful articles of learning the trade from Lecherito.

Quarterly Economic Reports

Q1-2009
Criticism against the QEN (Eve Tribune) (NEW)

Q1-2008

Q3-2007

Q4-2007

EVE Online Economics Dev Blogs

Dev Blog 1: Market Overview for Mineral Markets

Dev Blog 2: Production of Spaceships

Dev Blog 3: Some Statistics on Corporations

Dev Blog 4: Stats on the ORCA

Dev Blog 5: Popularity of Ships Types (NEW)

The way I see it we would do good to get our old man Omber Zombie back in there, so he can start wrestling the good doctor in LaVistas absence. I guess our main man Charlie has served his time and can retire in honor.

Should you feel inclined to learn more about the scary thing called Omber Zombie take a look at his blog.
Warning Old Waffles

The SCS currently offers the following services:

Auditing