Dipping My Toe in Station Trading

I’m not the richest person in the universe… comparatively.  But I am able to purchase whatever ships I want.  Losing that Archon loaded with T2 and T3 ships set me back about 4 billion, which represented about 9% of my liquid isk reserves.  But, a sting like that still hurt, particularly with PLEX prices rising.

So, though I can afford what I want to buy, I can’t do so indefinitely.  Moon mining is tricky business, with only a handful of profitable moons anymore and those all locked up by larger groups (particularly in lowsec, where they’ve all migrated). 

For a long time, I’ve wanted to try station trading.  I’m told you can make a lot of isk that way.  So, I figured I’d give it a go.  One of my characters can run over a hundred open market orders and has maxed skills to reduce transaction and market order fees.  I figure that’ll do for an initial foray.

My initial bankroll is 20 billion.  Like my RL investing, I’m sticking to items I know well and whose demand I can predict to some extent.  Because I’m USTZ, I know, going in, that I won’t be able to take advantage of patch announcements to speculate… that requires a quick hand and access to the client in EUTZ.  But there’s a lot of room between Buy and Sell  for me to insinuate myself.

Initially, I’m sticking to a single trade hub to see baseline profitability.  Sure, I see the price of Tengus in Aunsou vs. Jita and have considered buying them, shipping them, and selling for quick cash.  But I’m not quite there yet.  I’ve heard stocking minor trade hubs can earn billions of isk per week – particularly if you can stock modules and ships – but, again, I’m going to try the low-energy way first.

You see, station trading is a patience game.  When you plop down isk for a buy order, you can’t pull it just because you don’t get your items immediately.  Doing so is ruinous in terms of fees (0.75% of 20 bil is 150 million, btw…).  With this first foray, I need to prove to myself that I can actually be patient enough to let my orders mature and sell them off again for profit.

Patience is not one of my strong suits.  I gave up on training an alt because I was able to earn enough isk to buy a new character with 40 mil sp in the time it took to train one to 6 mil.  I like moving fast.  I like doing things.  Grinding is definitely not a preferred activity.

Countering that, though… I love the stock market.  P/E ratios, company financials, industry trends… it’s all very exciting to me.  Eve casts a different light on all of that, though… market dynamics are quite different, and long-term investments are subject to the heavy hand of rebalances.

So, we’ll see which wins out… my lack of patience or my curiosity about how market forces work in Eve.  So long as I steer clear of purple, I figure I’ll be okay.  Unlike in real life, items are always worth something.

Incidentally, WTB Geckos at low prices…