Wednesday 24 December 2008

Confusing Market Activity

First off, let me say Merry Christmas for everyone out there (or if you dont support Christmas, then have a good time anyway) since I missed the blog banter entry, mainly because I was crazy busy with work stuff at this time of the year (working in the power industry means that it takes a bit longer to get everything prepared for the time off for christmas to make sure theres adequate backup/response in case things do go wrong, and even though I was supposedly on holiday, I had quite a few emails to respond to/phone calls to answer during the day)

Anyway, now thats over and done with, just a quick note to see if anyone else has noticed any really strange market activity lately ?

I'm not going to reveal the details (I'm hoping its going to be a nice way to make some money) but one of the key ingredients for a tech 2 blueprint I'm making is now priced on the open market at one trade hub at much lower costs than it takes to manufacture. Im used to this with mission drop modules of course, people constatly undercut each other to offload the module at the best price for them, even if it means selling it for less than it costs to make it, since they didnt have to actually make it - but this particular module doesnt drop anywhere, at least where I know anyway.

The module is now about 250k less than what it used to sell at, and about 20k less than it costs to make it.

Its good for me of course, I can just buy them for my tech 2 manufacturing and not have to worry about making any, which saves me time and headaches, and if im lucky, I can move them a few regions away and sell them back on with the 250k markup in a region where there hasnt been massive undercutting and then rake back in a bit of money.

The really confusing thing isnt that its just one or two modules, its numbers in the 500-1000 range, and buying them all up would basically commit my entire wallet to it, so im just testing the waters for now to see if they sell.

Could be a nice little christmas present to me if it goes well... if not... then my tech 2 manufacture has gotten a touch cheaper, though im sure it will be more than offset by the increase in price in ferrogel and the other high end reaction minerals once my existing stocks run out.

3 comments:

Letrange said...

if you're basing this on a T2 component (sounds like it) and you're using current costs in the calculation, be aware that there may be serious speculation going on at the advanced materials level that go into making the component.

This is due to POS Advanced Materials Bug/Scandal. I'm not sure that material prices have stabilized yet. They may go further up or they may go back to their older prices wiping out your current observed advantage.

Personally I'd just buy for current production if it's less than I could manufacture them for and take a wait and see attitude with regards to any trading moves

But then again I may be more conservative than you are.

Karox Lominax said...

No.. the actual part is a tech 1 module which is the equivalent tech 1 item for the tech 2 version blueprint, and whilst it does contain tech 2 components (think that pretty much gives what it is away, but you never know) the parts are fairly low level complex reactions that dont seem to have been affected by the POS fallout issues. Basically, the price has dropped from around about 1 million isk per each of these tech 1 modules down to 770k or thereabouts but only in 1 trade hub. I've already sold on some of the extra ones I bought with a view to reselling them, so I'm not complaining :)

Letrange said...

ok yep that gives it away, at least to experienced manufactures like myself that have the BPO.

In that case weird. Buy and re-list or melt.