Difference between revisions of "Trading"

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[[Category:Guides]]
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{{related class|Trade (CORE class)}}
[[Category:Industry]]
 
[[Category:Trading]]
 
Trading has different aspects in EVE as you can see in the content of this page. What you basically do is buying at low prices and selling it at high prices. Or the easiest trading interaction in EVE: buying ships, weapons and ammo for your own use and selling stuff you collected on your missions. Many points are already mentioned in [http://wiki.eveonline.com/wiki/Trading, wiki of eveonline]. So not everything will be mentioned in here if it exists on the indicated Page.
 
  
=MP3 classes=
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'''Market''' is the most popular system through which players can buy and sell items in [[New Eden]]. The other common systems are [[contracts]] and direct trades.
The things written here are not my own invention. Though my experiences proofed them. If you dont feel like reading you can take mp3 classes:
 
* of [http://ds180.net/eve-uni/Eldiora%20-%20Trading%20101.mp3 Eldiora] (The basics of trading. Emphasis on interregional trade and getting started.)
 
* of [http://ds180.net/eve-uni/Dr%20Deus%20-%20Trading.mp3 Dr Deus] (Introduction to trading. Emphasis on station trading, trading in Jita, Maximizing profit. --> this is my favourite)
 
* of [http://ds180.net/eve-uni/Sun%20Win%20-%20Trading%20101.mp3 Sun Win] (Buy and Sell orders. Creating a Trade Alt. Buying Low, selling high. Trade via hauling. Details of the Market system, Market analysis. Recommended Skills.)
 
  
 +
The market is essentially an automated list of item exchange contracts: buy orders and sell orders. Since orders can be partially filled and searched easily, it tends to be a lot more convenient than trading through contracts, although the basic principle is the same. Another advantage of the market is that it's easy to see the price and quantity that items are actually selling for, using the market details tab.
  
=Character & Trading Alt=
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Each region has its own regional market. Each station and [[Upwell structures|Upwell structure]] with market service module has access to the market.
In the beginning of the game you should think about what type of character you want to become in EVE. The serious trader will have many of the trade skills up to level 4 or 5. The ultimate trader will reach Tycoon lvl IV and train up non prerequisites to IV, will spend 90 days training and 190 mil isk on skill books. Depending on the way you want to play this game you can choose whether you want to focus on trading, doing it only along the other things you do in EVE or you have an alt with whom you manage all market related actions. There are advantages and disadvantages in any of these options (this list might not be complete). So you have to find out what suits your needs best.
 
  
==War Time==
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== Advantages of market trading ==
By the time you get involved in a war the first time in uni you will notice that it might be difficult to earn money since you are not allowed to do anything else than joining fleets or doing things within the station. That problem arises especially if you just recently joined or have a low skilled character regarding trading skills. There are two ways to work around this problem:
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* Easy to get started: You can start trading right away on a character with no skills, and the amount of skill training needed compared to other professions is fairly low. The only skill you really need to start with is {{sk|Trade}}, without which you'll probably feel a little limited in the number of orders you can have open.  
# Train the skills that your character is able to do remote trading or
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* Easy to do during war: With a small investment in skills (Marketing, Procurement and Daytrading to level 2) you can easily station trade in one system while docked up in another, or use an alt to trade in other ways. 
# create an alt which you place in a [[Trade_Hubs|trading hub]] (the most popular is in Jita) who is only there for Station Trading.
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* Time-flexible: A lot of trading happens while docked up, and it's easy to go AFK with no real danger most of the time. While this isn't true during hauling, good hauls tend to be fairly short and you can always dock up halfway through.
 +
* Scalable. With more money you can invest in more items making you more money.
  
=Market=
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== Skills ==
In order to see the worth of your item or how much isk an item will cost you, bring the item up in the market window. It is important to know, that the market window shows only the region you are in. Even if you are at a gate to another region you can't see the market "behind this gate". So the same item can have an entirely different price in a nearby region than in the one you are. (Tip: Have an alt in adjacent regions to yours if possible for "price checks". Inter regional trading can be VERY profitable)
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[[Skills:Trade|Trade skills]] can be divided into three groups:
 +
* Skills that increase maximum number of active orders orders: Trade, Retail, Wholesale, Tycoon.
 +
* Skills that allow you to buy and sell things remotely: Marketing, Procurement, Daytrading, Visibility.
 +
* Skills that reduce trading overhead: Accounting, Broker Relations, Advanced Broker Relations
  
==Selling & Buying==
 
Whether you decide to become a trader, or merely sell excess stuff in your hangar or mission loot, using the market window will come into play almost daily. Taking a few minutes to learn the layout of the market window is critical. If you do not understand it properly, you run the risk of losing isk by paying too much for an item, or getting to little for it.
 
  
The top pane is a list of sellers. This list should be sorted by the price column, lowest price at top, highest on the bottom(this sorting is not by default, you must set it). The bottom pane is the list of buyers. The buyer list should be sorted by price, opposite of the sellers list, highest offer at the top, lowest on the bottom. The buyers that you can sell to at your current location will have a green bar background. Usually the guy offering more isk wants it delivered directly to their station or pretty close.
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Skills that increase the number of market slots:<br>
 +
With no trade skills a character can set up 5 simultaneous orders.
 +
* {{sk|Trade|mult=yes|price=yes}} – grants 4 additional orders per level.
 +
* {{sk|Retail|mult=yes|price=yes}} – grants 8 additional orders per level.
 +
* {{sk|Wholesale|mult=yes|price=yes}} – grants 16 additional orders per level.
 +
* {{sk|Tycoon|mult=yes|price=yes}} – grants 32 additional orders per level.
 +
With all these skills trained to level 5 a character can manage up to 305 orders.
  
A trader's goal is simple. Buy low and sell high. The difference between the two amounts is referred to as the margin. Maintaining a profitable margin can be difficult if you encounter another trader that also has buy and sell orders up at the same time for the same item. Engaging in this activity and attempting to run the other trader off is referred to as market PvP(Tip: If you just sell mission loot, look at the best offer price and the lowest seller price. If there is a wide margin, you may be better off hanging onto the gear or refining it)
 
  
===Mission Runners===
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Skills that allow buying and selling remotely:
Mission runners normally don't care much about prices to the stuff they collect since they make their money with the rewards they get from the agents. They just sell the things on their mission hub or at max haul the items within a region. But think of it: This mission hub may supply dozens of players with the same missions who collect the same things on their missions. So there are way too many items of the same kind in the market and prices fall. Just one region nearby the prices might (mostly are) much better for these mission items.
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* {{sk|Marketing|mult=yes|price=yes}} – allows to setup sell orders remotely.
* Now if you are a mission runner think about selling collected stuff in a nearby region once in a while to make extra money.
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* {{sk|Procurement|mult=yes|price=yes}} – allows to setup buy orders remotely. The range of these buy orders are controlled by the Visibility skill. E.g. with level 5 Procurement skill orders can be set up anywhere in the region, but with level 0 of Visibility they will be limited to the station where they are set.
* If you are a trader look for mission hubs buy stuff there at low prices and sell it high in nearby region or system where you know prices are way better.
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* {{sk|Daytrading|mult=yes|price=yes}} – allows to manage orders remotely.
 +
* {{sk|Visibility|mult=yes|price=yes}} - increases maximum range of remote buy orders, so sellers can fill such orders from any station with this range of the remote buy order. Every buy order can have own effective range limited to this skill.  
 +
** level 0: limited to current station
 +
** level 1: anywhere within current solar system
 +
** level 2: 5 jumps
 +
** level 3: 10 jumps
 +
** level 4: 20 jumps
 +
** level 5: entire region
  
===What items to trade?===
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The info for these skills can be misleading. Sadly, these skills do not magically move goods around. For example, Procurement will not allow you to buy goods in a distant system and have them appear in your current station's hangar. What these skills do is allow you to buy and sell goods that are not in your current station/system. If you are a station trader, for example, you hang out somewhere else from your goods; this increases safety, because trade hubs tend to attract PvP action. Similarly, you can deliver your salvage to a trade hub then go back to missioning where the missions are, while still managing the sale of your salvage.  
If you look for the item to trade --> this doesn't exist. Just go through the items with a systematic approach. The one I suggest here is the one I use not the "right" one. You can stop at every point (going through my explanation) when you find things you want to trade.
 
  
First check the items you would use to fly missions or PVP. Then check the T2 version of this item. Find similar items (by name (-> use search function in market window) or group they are in). "Jump" to equivalent items of other races. If you follow this for sure you will find an item to trade.
 
  
See also [[How to identify items to trade]] - a brilliant, entertaining and simple guide on how to use the market graph effectively to identify products with potential.
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Skills that reduce overhead:
 +
* {{sk|Accounting|mult=yes|price=yes}} - reduces the sales tax by 11% per level from 8% to 3.6% at level 5.
 +
* {{sk|Broker Relations|mult=yes|price=yes}} – reduces the broker fee by 0.3 percentage points per level (10% reduction per level ignoring the standings). At level 5 this brings you from 3% to 1.5%. Also reduces the relist fee. This fee is also affected by standings between the trader and the corporation and faction that own the station. Has no effect when trading in player owned structures.
 +
* {{sk|Advanced Broker Relations|mult=yes|price=yes}} - reduces the relist fee paid when updating order price by 5 percentage points per level (10% reduction per level).
  
===Station Trading===
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== Taxes ==
This is my favourite thing to do with my alt! Honestly, what I'm writing here is not all my invention but confirmed experiences. I'd strongly recommend taking Dr Deus trading class. Some things may be redundant others complementary.
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Any time the market is used there are [[tax]]es <ref>[https://www.eveonline.com/news/view/restructuring-taxes-after-relief Restructuring Taxes After Relief][2021-10-19] For older tax changes see "A long, long time ago..." elsewhere on this page.</ref> that need to be paid. There are three different taxes: sales tax, broker's fee and relist fee.
Well, station trading is basically the same as you do when you buy thins at one location at low and at another at high prices. The difference is - you do it in the same station. To be able to do so you certainly need a trading hub to place yourself. Obviously it's useless to be in a station where nothing - or only very few items are traded. Once you have chosen a station where you want to do station trading go to the market window and check the different items. Sort the market data for prices. In the upper window (seller) check that you have the lowest price at the top of the list and in the lower window (buyer) you want to see the highest price at the top. Now the difference between the highest buying price and the lowest selling price can be your profit.
 
You can place orders which are just above the current highest price and everyone who want to sell things (ex. Mission runners) will sell it to you. Once you have the items in your stock you can sell them again at a price which is just below the currently lowest price (in the sellers window) and everyone who wants to buy that item will buy it from you. For more detailed information listen to Dr Deus class.
 
  
====Volume matters====
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A station trader with zero standings will pay between 5.1% (at max skills) and 11% of the order price as fees/taxes. This is important to take into account when calculating your profit, but of course the standings can change that further. With max skills and max standings a station trader will pay 4.6% of the order price as fees/taxes.
Especially on station trading you should always check the volume sold and bought each day. Have a look at the price history and take in account following points:
 
* the volume shown is traded within the whole region not only the station you are in.
 
* the volume includes buying and selling activities. This could mean, that manufaturer sell huge amounts of their products at prices that no one else can go below without loosing money. So it might happen, that you can place an order due to a good price difference between buying and selling orders but your buying order will never be filled. Always check in the history whether the highest buyer price is/was in the range of lowest and highest prices.
 
* the volume tells you how long it approximately takes to fill your order. If you place an order for 1000 items and only 10 per day are traded in average it would take you at least 100 days in average, provided that the traded volume is only used to fill the buyers orders (this hardly ever happens) and you are always the highest bidder (this also hardly ever happens). So you gotta get a feeling for these volumes.
 
  
According to Dr. Deus class which I can confirm according to my experience the Volumes can be devided in three groups:
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=== Sales tax ===
# <500 --> low volume item
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When an item is sold on the market the seller will also pay sales tax. The base sales tax is 4.5%<ref>Patch Notes: [https://www.eveonline.com/news/view/patch-notes-version-22-01 Version 22.01] Release 2024-07-25.1 - Marketplace taxes reduced to 4.5%. Down from 8%.</ref> and is reduced by 11% per level in {{Sk|Accounting}} (2.03% at max skills). The sales tax shows up in the wallet as transaction tax.
# 500 - 1,000 --> medium volume item
 
# > 1,000 --> high volume item
 
The amounts for ammo are different!!
 
  
====Volume, price and order balance====
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: <math> \displaystyle
When you are trading you are looking for the largest price difference - but not only! We have talked about volume and price but there is another factor you have to pay attention. In the buyers window (as well as in the sellers window but there its not that crucial) you can see how many oper order there are to fill. Each line is one. This also means that you have the same amount of people behind these lines who want to have the item. The more orders there are the harder it gets to be the highest bidder cause all buyers log in at different times an put there order again at the top of the list by changing the price.
+
\text{Sales tax %} = 4.5\% * (1-(11\% \times \text{Accounting level}))
 +
</math>
  
There is always a fee and taxes you have to pay when you are selling and buying stuff. Skills and standings can lower those costs. But the point here is that especially low price difference items with limited amount of volume can cause you more costs than you actually earn by selling them. So keep an eye on the calculation of the over all profit.
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Sales tax is always paid to NPC corporation Secure Commerce Commission (SCC).
  
To sum up: volume, price and number of orders have to be in a balance that suits you way of playing. There is no golden rule in my opinion.
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{{expansion past|width=45%
 +
|
 +
'''Version 22.01 release 2024-07-25.1''' [https://www.eveonline.com/news/view/patch-notes-version-22-01 Patch notes]
 +
* Marketplace taxes reduced to 4.5%. Down from 8%. (No mention of duration)
  
=Skills=
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'''Version 19-09 release 2021-10-19.1''' [https://www.eveonline.com/news/view/patch-notes-version-19-09#2021-10-19.1 Patch notes]
There are some skill that influence your trading capabilities. Depending on your needs you have to decide individually whether or not you want to train specific skills.
 
  
* Daytrading: ability to change orders from distance
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Market sales taxes and broker fees have changed:
* Marketing: ability to set up selling orders from distance
+
* Maximum Sales Tax increased from 2.5% to 8%
* Procurement: ability to set up buying orders from distance
+
* Maximum Brokers Fee increased from 2.5% to 3%
  
Level 1 allows changes/creation of orders in the same system. Level 2 rises the range to 5 more jumps. Every following level doubles the range. Level 5 enables you change/create orders within the current region.
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'''Version 19-05 release 2021-07-21''' ''The Grand Heist'' [https://www.eveonline.com/news/view/the-grand-heist-now-live EVE news]
  
--> These three skills are the "holy trinity" of remote trading. As long as you don't have a trading alt sitting in a station where you do your trading these skills are essential to be able to trade efficiently without having  actually to move to a station.
+
Market sales taxes and broker fees have changed. For three months Sales Tax and Brokers Fee's were cut in half as part of the "Grand Heist" release.
 +
* Maximum Sales Tax decreased from 5% to 2.5%
 +
* Maximum Brokers Fee decreased from 5% to 2.5%
 +
* Relist fee discount increased from 5% to 6%
  
* Retail: increases your total of possible orders by 8 per level
+
'''March 2020 release''' [https://www.eveonline.com/news/view/patch-notes-for-march-2020-release Patch notes][https://www.eveonline.com/news/view/broker-relations Devblog]
* Trade: increases your total of possible orders by 4 per level
 
  
* Broker relations: reduce taxes by 5% of the current tax rate per level
+
Relist fee added.
* Accounting: reduces transaction costs by 10% per level
 
  
--> Whenever you set up a buy or sell order, you will have to pay the broker fee: 1% of the total order (0.75% at max skills). Whenever each unit gets sold, you will pay 1% of the sell price as sales tax (0.5% at max skills). So the typical station trader with zero standings will pay 3% of the order price as taxes, 2% at max skills.  This is important to take into account when calculating your profit.
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'''August 2019 release 2019-08-01.1''' [https://www.eveonline.com/article/ptgdti/patch-notes-for-june-2019-release Patch notes][https://www.eveonline.com/news/view/updates-to-sales-taxes-and-brokers-fees Devblog]
  
====Standings====
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Market sales taxes and broker fees have changed:
 +
* Maximum Sales Tax increased from 2% to 5%
 +
* Maximum Brokers Fee increase for NPC stations from 3% to 5%
  
[[Faction standings|Faction]] and [[corporation standings]] relevant to the station the orders are placed in, will have an effect on the broker fee. Faction standings contribute significantly more than corp standings. The exact formula is:
+
Tax associated skills have been changed:
 +
* {{Sk|Accounting}} – Increase in reduction of sales tax from 10% per level to 11% per level
 +
* {{Sk|Broker Relations}} – Increase in reduction of costs associated with setting up a market order from 0.1% per level to 0.3% per level
 +
}}
  
: ''BrokerFee % = (1.000 % – 0.050 % × BrokerRelationsSkillLevel) / e ^ (0.1000 × FactionStanding + 0.04000 × CorporationStanding)''
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=== Broker's fee ===
 +
'''Broker's fee''' is paid every time a sell or buy order with duration other than "immediate" is created. The broker's fee is a percentage value of the total value of the created market order. The broker's fee is paid immediately when the order is created. If the order is taken down or expires the fee is not paid back. The minimum broker's fee is 100 ISK.
  
As you can see, with 10 faction and corp standing, the broker fee is reduced to 0.185%, saving you more than 1% through the buy and sell process.
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 +
In NPC stations the base broker's fee is 3%. The broker fee can be reduced with the {{sk|Broker Relations}} skill and [[NPC standings]].
 +
 
 +
Corporation standings contribute 2/3 of that of faction standings. Note that the ''unmodified'' standing is used for the calculation so skills that increase standings have no effect on broker's fees.
 +
 
 +
The equation for the NPC broker's fee percentage is<ref>EVE help center: [https://support.eveonline.com/hc/en-us/articles/203218962-Broker-Fee-and-Sales-Tax Broker Fee and Sales Tax]</ref>
 +
: <math>
 +
\displaystyle \text{Broker's fee %} = 3\% - 0.3\% \times \text{Broker Relations level} - 0.03\% \times \text{faction standing} - 0.02\% \times \text{corporation standing}
 +
</math>
 +
 
 +
With no skills or standing the broker's fee is 3%. With broker relations V, the broker's fee is reduced to 1.5%. With 10 faction and corp (i.e. perfect) standing the fee is further reduced to 1%.
 +
 
 +
 
 +
In player owned [[Upwell structure]] markets the broker's fee is a fixed SCC surcharge of 0.5% plus a percentage set by the structure owner and is not affected by any skills. The owner may set different fees for different standing levels. The minimum owner fee is 0% <ref>Patch notes: [https://www.eveonline.com/news/view/patch-notes-version-21-05 Version 21.05] Release 2023-06-21.1</ref>. The minimum broker fee is 100 ISK.
 +
: <math>
 +
\displaystyle \text{Broker's fee %} = 0.5\% + \text{Owner %}
 +
</math>
 +
 
 +
 
 +
Leading to a broker's fee of:
 +
: <math>
 +
\text{Broker's fee} = \text{Market order value} \times \text{Broker's fee %}
 +
</math>
 +
 
 +
=== Relist fee ===
 +
When an order is modified you will need to again pay a broker's fee. This broker's fee is reduced by a relist discount with a base reduction of 50%. The relist discount can be increased by the {{Sk|Advanced Broker Relations}} skill.
 +
 
 +
The relist fee is calculated as<ref>EVE help center: [https://support.eveonline.com/hc/en-us/articles/203218932 Buy and Sell Orders]</ref>
 +
 
 +
: <math>
 +
\text{Relist fee} = ( 100\% - ( 50\% + 6\% \times \text{Advanced Broker Relations level} ) ) \times \text{Broker's fee %} \times \text{New order value} + \text{Broker's fee%} \times \max ( \text{New order value} - \text{Old order value}, 0)
 +
</math>
 +
 
 +
where Broker's fee % is same as when setting up the market order described in the above section. The minimum relist fee is 100 ISK.
 +
 
 +
 
 +
Examples:
 +
 
 +
{{Example
 +
|You have a sell order for 13,000x tritanium at 6.00 ISK each.<br>
 +
You have already sold 3,000x tritanium so there are 10,000x tritanium left in the order. For total order value of 60,000 ISK.<br>
 +
You increase the price to 7.00 ISK each. The new total order value becomes 70,000 ISK.<br>
 +
Your broker's fee % after skills and standing is 1.88%. Your Advanced Broker Relations level is IV so your relist fee is<br>
 +
: <math> \displaystyle (100\% - ( 50\% + 6\% \times 4 ) ) \times 1.88\% \times 70,000 + 1.88\% \times max ( ( 70,000 - 60,000 ), 0 ) </math>
 +
 
 +
: <math> \displaystyle (100\% - ( 50\% + 24\% ) ) \times 1.88\% \times 70,000 + 1.88\% \times max ( ( 10,000  ), 0 ) </math>
 +
 
 +
: <math> \displaystyle 26\% \times 1.88\% \times 70,000 + 1.88\% \times 10,000 </math>
 +
 
 +
: <math> \displaystyle 0.26 \times 0.0188 \times 70,000 + 0.0188 \times 10,000 </math>
 +
 
 +
: <math> \displaystyle 342.16 + 188.00 = 530.16 \text{ ISK} </math>
 +
}}
 +
 
 +
{{Example
 +
|You have a sell order for 13,000x tritanium at 6.00 ISK each.<br>
 +
You have already sold 3,000x tritanium so there are 10,000x tritanium left in the order. For total order value of 60,000 ISK.<br>
 +
You decrease the price to 5.00 ISK each. The new total order value becomes 50,000 ISK.<br>
 +
Your broker's fee % after skills and standing is 1.88%. Your Advanced Broker Relations level is IV so your relist fee is<br>
 +
: <math> \displaystyle (100\% - ( 50\% + 6\% \times 4 ) ) \times 1.88\% \times 50,000 + 1.88\% \times max ( ( 50,000 - 60,000 ), 0 ) </math>
 +
 
 +
: <math> \displaystyle (100\% - ( 50\% + 24\% ) ) \times 1.88\% \times 50,000 + 1.88\% \times max ( ( -10,000 ), 0 ) </math>
 +
 
 +
: <math> \displaystyle 26\% \times 1.88\% \times 50,000 + 1.88\% \times 0 </math>
 +
 
 +
: <math> \displaystyle 0.26 \times 0.0188 \times 50,000 + 0.0188 \times 0 </math>
 +
 
 +
: <math> \displaystyle 244.40 + 0 = 244.40 \text{ ISK} </math>
 +
}}
 +
 
 +
In some cases it can cost more to modify an old order than it costs to take it down and set up a new order.
 +
 
 +
{{Example
 +
|You are trading in a player structure with 1% broker's fee(0.5% SCC surcharge + 0.5% owners percentage). Your Advanced Broker Relations level is 0.
 +
You have a buy order for 1,000x item A for 1k ISK each. For an order value of 1,000,000 ISK<br>
 +
you update the order to 10k ISK each. For an order value of 10,000,000 ISK<br>
 +
Relist fee:
 +
: <math>  \displaystyle (100\% - ( 50\% + 6\% \times 0 ) ) \times 1\% \times 10,000,000 + 1\% \times max ( ( 10,000,000 - 1,000,000 ), 0 ) </math>
 +
 
 +
: <math>  \displaystyle (100\% - 50\% ) \times 1\% \times 10,000,000 + 1\% \times max ( ( 9,000,000), 0 ) </math>
 +
 
 +
: <math>  \displaystyle 50\% \times 1\% \times 10,000,000 + 1\% \times 9,000,000 </math>
 +
 
 +
: <math>  \displaystyle 0.5 \times 0.01 \times 10,000,000 + 0.01 \times 9,000,000 </math>
 +
 
 +
: <math>  \displaystyle 0.5 \times 0.01 \times 10,000,000 + 0.01 \times 9,000,000 </math>
 +
 
 +
: <math>  \displaystyle 50,000 + 90,000 = 140,000 \text{ ISK}</math>
 +
 
 +
Broker fee:
 +
: <math> \displaystyle 1\% \times 10,000,000 </math>
 +
 
 +
: <math> \displaystyle 0.01 \times 10,000,000 =  100,000 \text{ ISK}</math>
 +
 
 +
You will need to pay 140k ISK relist fee.<br>
 +
If you just create a new order you need to pay 100k ISK broker's fee.
 +
}}
 +
 
 +
== Trading using the Market ==
 +
The main method of trading is doing what other players can't be bothered to do: either they're too lazy or the opportunity cost is too big. Most market activity occurs in and around [[trade hubs]].
 +
 
 +
=== Station Trading ===
 +
Station trading is trading in its most basic form. You buy low and sell high.
 +
 
 +
Basically, you want to find items with a reasonable volume traded and a significant difference in buy and sell order prices within the same station. A large source of these types of items comes from NPC loot: players run missions, collect loot and just want to sell it for a quick buck, since they don't have the time or the Trade skills to set up sell orders for everything. On the other hand, players searching for one will pay quite a bit more since they can't get it anywhere else.
 +
 
 +
The simple rule of thumb is buy low and sell high. For station trading to be performed effectively, ensure that your sell order's gross profit minus your buy order's cost minus taxation still leaves a profit! Setting up buy and sell orders on multiple items minimizes risk of a market price crash on any one particular item. If you can make 20,000 ISK on an item and manage to trade 100 of these per day this will give you 2,000,000 ISK. Do this with 50 different products and this equates to 100,000,000 ISK per day!
 +
 
 +
Start small, reinvest, and you will soon see your total ISK grow very quickly. When you start working with billions of ISK you can trade higher priced items, which, in turn, can increase your margins and also price out some of the competition!
 +
 
 +
Station trading is all about volume. Your margins are often thin, and you'll need to save money everywhere you can. That means training Broker Relations and Accounting to 5.
 +
 
 +
Early in your trading career, these fractional percentages have a minimal impact i.e. if trained to level 5, you need to trade 667 million ISK of goods to earn back the 5 million ISK you spent on the Accounting skillbook. As you build your trading volume, however, these reductions are quite meaningful. Without getting into the math, training Broker Relations and Accounting to 5 will increase your profits by 11% (assuming you do not need to modify your offer).
 +
 
 +
Guides:
 +
 
 +
* [https://eve-files.com/media/corp/kinisd/e-uni_the_guide_to_making_isk_part_4.mp3 Guide to Making ISK Part 4: Titan Production] [https://docs.google.com/a/mailsort.info/file/d/0BywKzjZACDzNN2Q5MzJiNjItYWUzNy00MzljLThlYzUtZTAyNTVhMjdkZWYx/edit?hl=en_US Notes]: Excellent station trading guides by EVE trillionaire Sinqlaison
 +
* [[Identifying items for trade]]
 +
* [http://soundcloud.com/alexkal1/irdalth-delrars-impromtu Irdalth Delrar's Impromtu Station Trading Guide]
 +
 
 +
=== Cross region trading ===
 +
Sometimes items have different values in different areas of space. You can buy low in one place and sell high in another place.
 +
 
 +
Basically, you buy some goods at one station, load them up into your hauling ship, carry them off to another station and sell them for profit. This works because most players don't have the ships or the time to move everything themselves. Finding good trade routes is hard (and changes on a daily basis), so most players use an external tool such as [[Using external tools to haul profitably|EVE Trade]]. However, there are usually certain routes that are profitable in general, such as hauling stuff from mission hubs, where mission runners dump their loots, to trading hubs where there is less supply.
 +
 
 +
See [[Hauling]] for more details on moving items from one place to another.
 +
 
 +
Guides:
 +
* [[Creating an Alt Hauler]]
 +
* [[Using external tools to haul profitably]]
 +
* [[Known pirate systems]] - Avoid these.
 +
 
 +
=== Speculation  ===
 +
Speculation is the act of buying goods in the hope that their price will rise in the future. For example, [[PLEX]] prices can rise significantly during the summer holidays, so buying them earlier in the year and selling them during the summer can create a large profit. Speculation can also occur on patch changes or market stampedes.
 +
 
 +
Speculative market trading requires you to have good understanding on the wider EVE economy. Where do items come from, where do items go to, how does update on X affect item Y? Owning a crystal ball also helps.
 +
 
 +
== Tips and Tricks  ==
 +
As with other aspects of EVE, the first rule of trading is to never invest what you can't afford to lose.
 +
 
 +
=== Finding items that are good to trade ===
 +
There is an incredibly simple 3-step plan for finding good trading items:
 +
 
 +
# Click on a market category, and start looking at the orders and market details for each item
 +
# Switch to another category, and keep looking at each item.
 +
# Look at items some more.
 +
 
 +
With that said, it's important to know what you're looking for, and hopefully the [[Identifying items for trade|burger method]] and the tips on this page should be enough. Generally, for station trading, you want to find items that:
 +
 
 +
* have a high and fairly constant demand. You can check item demand by looking at the volume sold chart in the market details. While some items might have huge margins, if the volume sold is small or infrequent then there is much more risk associated with that item.
 +
* actually sell for the buy and sell orders listed. You can check this by looking at the market details and seeing whether the range of prices includes the current best buy and sell orders. The median price should be somewhere between the two.
 +
 
 +
Good items to trade are (depending on region and current market) meta-4 items (e.g. Arbalest launchers): they can't be produced and some of them have better or the same attributes as their T2 counterparts.
 +
 
 +
Remember to diversify between different items so that if your market breaks down you don't lose all your money.
 +
 
 +
=== Trend lines ===
 +
Trend lines are used in the real world to help self brokers and stock brokers find out future events in the stock market, or more commonly known as a technical analysis. To use a trend line all you need to do is find a way to draw a line from peak to peak and trough to trough in the line graph on price history on an item. You will want to draw a line that hits at least 2 to 3 peaks and another that hits 2 to 3 troughs. This will tell you that the price should fall between the 2 lines and if the prices hits one of the lines or go a little past it then its time to buy or sell the item in EVE. The trick to this in both EVE and the real world is to do this and know what you're doing as fast and right as possible.
 +
 
 +
You should be able to look at a graph in 5 minutes and say if it's a good buy or sell for you if you're buying and selling short term. The only trick to using something is it must be straight. If worst comes to worst you can press print screen, paste the image into paint and make the trend line there but if you do this you will lose some valuable time.
 +
 
 +
Because there is so much information already out there [https://stockcharts.com/school/doku.php?id=chart_school:chart_analysis:trend_lines here is a link that gets in detail on what you should do to make and read a trend line.]
 +
 
 +
Lastly here is another [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5v72zMtO3Mk video that shows you how the trend line works on line graphs.]
 +
 
 +
== References ==
 +
<references />
 +
 
 +
[[Category:Trade]]

Latest revision as of 17:01, 25 July 2024

E-UNI Emblem.png EVE University offers
a class on:


Market is the most popular system through which players can buy and sell items in New Eden. The other common systems are contracts and direct trades.

The market is essentially an automated list of item exchange contracts: buy orders and sell orders. Since orders can be partially filled and searched easily, it tends to be a lot more convenient than trading through contracts, although the basic principle is the same. Another advantage of the market is that it's easy to see the price and quantity that items are actually selling for, using the market details tab.

Each region has its own regional market. Each station and Upwell structure with market service module has access to the market.

Advantages of market trading

  • Easy to get started: You can start trading right away on a character with no skills, and the amount of skill training needed compared to other professions is fairly low. The only skill you really need to start with is Trade, without which you'll probably feel a little limited in the number of orders you can have open.
  • Easy to do during war: With a small investment in skills (Marketing, Procurement and Daytrading to level 2) you can easily station trade in one system while docked up in another, or use an alt to trade in other ways.
  • Time-flexible: A lot of trading happens while docked up, and it's easy to go AFK with no real danger most of the time. While this isn't true during hauling, good hauls tend to be fairly short and you can always dock up halfway through.
  • Scalable. With more money you can invest in more items making you more money.

Skills

Trade skills can be divided into three groups:

  • Skills that increase maximum number of active orders orders: Trade, Retail, Wholesale, Tycoon.
  • Skills that allow you to buy and sell things remotely: Marketing, Procurement, Daytrading, Visibility.
  • Skills that reduce trading overhead: Accounting, Broker Relations, Advanced Broker Relations


Skills that increase the number of market slots:
With no trade skills a character can set up 5 simultaneous orders.

  • Trade (1x, 30k ISK) – grants 4 additional orders per level.
  • Retail (2x, 125k ISK) – grants 8 additional orders per level.
  • Wholesale (4x, 35M ISK) – grants 16 additional orders per level.
  • Tycoon (6x, 125M ISK) – grants 32 additional orders per level.

With all these skills trained to level 5 a character can manage up to 305 orders.


Skills that allow buying and selling remotely:

  • Marketing (3x, 3.5M ISK) – allows to setup sell orders remotely.
  • Procurement (3x, 1.5M ISK) – allows to setup buy orders remotely. The range of these buy orders are controlled by the Visibility skill. E.g. with level 5 Procurement skill orders can be set up anywhere in the region, but with level 0 of Visibility they will be limited to the station where they are set.
  • Daytrading (1x, 15M ISK) – allows to manage orders remotely.
  • Visibility (3x, 7.5M ISK) - increases maximum range of remote buy orders, so sellers can fill such orders from any station with this range of the remote buy order. Every buy order can have own effective range limited to this skill.
    • level 0: limited to current station
    • level 1: anywhere within current solar system
    • level 2: 5 jumps
    • level 3: 10 jumps
    • level 4: 20 jumps
    • level 5: entire region

The info for these skills can be misleading. Sadly, these skills do not magically move goods around. For example, Procurement will not allow you to buy goods in a distant system and have them appear in your current station's hangar. What these skills do is allow you to buy and sell goods that are not in your current station/system. If you are a station trader, for example, you hang out somewhere else from your goods; this increases safety, because trade hubs tend to attract PvP action. Similarly, you can deliver your salvage to a trade hub then go back to missioning where the missions are, while still managing the sale of your salvage.


Skills that reduce overhead:

  • Accounting (3x, 5M ISK) - reduces the sales tax by 11% per level from 8% to 3.6% at level 5.
  • Broker Relations (2x, 125k ISK) – reduces the broker fee by 0.3 percentage points per level (10% reduction per level ignoring the standings). At level 5 this brings you from 3% to 1.5%. Also reduces the relist fee. This fee is also affected by standings between the trader and the corporation and faction that own the station. Has no effect when trading in player owned structures.
  • Advanced Broker Relations (3x, 20M ISK) - reduces the relist fee paid when updating order price by 5 percentage points per level (10% reduction per level).

Taxes

Any time the market is used there are taxes [1] that need to be paid. There are three different taxes: sales tax, broker's fee and relist fee.

A station trader with zero standings will pay between 5.1% (at max skills) and 11% of the order price as fees/taxes. This is important to take into account when calculating your profit, but of course the standings can change that further. With max skills and max standings a station trader will pay 4.6% of the order price as fees/taxes.

Sales tax

When an item is sold on the market the seller will also pay sales tax. The base sales tax is 4.5%[2] and is reduced by 11% per level in Accounting (2.03% at max skills). The sales tax shows up in the wallet as transaction tax.

[math] \displaystyle \text{Sales tax %} = 4.5\% * (1-(11\% \times \text{Accounting level})) [/math]

Sales tax is always paid to NPC corporation Secure Commerce Commission (SCC).

Broker's fee

Broker's fee is paid every time a sell or buy order with duration other than "immediate" is created. The broker's fee is a percentage value of the total value of the created market order. The broker's fee is paid immediately when the order is created. If the order is taken down or expires the fee is not paid back. The minimum broker's fee is 100 ISK.


In NPC stations the base broker's fee is 3%. The broker fee can be reduced with the Broker Relations skill and NPC standings.

Corporation standings contribute 2/3 of that of faction standings. Note that the unmodified standing is used for the calculation so skills that increase standings have no effect on broker's fees.

The equation for the NPC broker's fee percentage is[3]

[math] \displaystyle \text{Broker's fee %} = 3\% - 0.3\% \times \text{Broker Relations level} - 0.03\% \times \text{faction standing} - 0.02\% \times \text{corporation standing} [/math]

With no skills or standing the broker's fee is 3%. With broker relations V, the broker's fee is reduced to 1.5%. With 10 faction and corp (i.e. perfect) standing the fee is further reduced to 1%.


In player owned Upwell structure markets the broker's fee is a fixed SCC surcharge of 0.5% plus a percentage set by the structure owner and is not affected by any skills. The owner may set different fees for different standing levels. The minimum owner fee is 0% [4]. The minimum broker fee is 100 ISK.

[math] \displaystyle \text{Broker's fee %} = 0.5\% + \text{Owner %} [/math]


Leading to a broker's fee of:

[math] \text{Broker's fee} = \text{Market order value} \times \text{Broker's fee %} [/math]

Relist fee

When an order is modified you will need to again pay a broker's fee. This broker's fee is reduced by a relist discount with a base reduction of 50%. The relist discount can be increased by the Advanced Broker Relations skill.

The relist fee is calculated as[5]

[math] \text{Relist fee} = ( 100\% - ( 50\% + 6\% \times \text{Advanced Broker Relations level} ) ) \times \text{Broker's fee %} \times \text{New order value} + \text{Broker's fee%} \times \max ( \text{New order value} - \text{Old order value}, 0) [/math]

where Broker's fee % is same as when setting up the market order described in the above section. The minimum relist fee is 100 ISK.


Examples:

You have a sell order for 13,000x tritanium at 6.00 ISK each.

You have already sold 3,000x tritanium so there are 10,000x tritanium left in the order. For total order value of 60,000 ISK.
You increase the price to 7.00 ISK each. The new total order value becomes 70,000 ISK.
Your broker's fee % after skills and standing is 1.88%. Your Advanced Broker Relations level is IV so your relist fee is

[math] \displaystyle (100\% - ( 50\% + 6\% \times 4 ) ) \times 1.88\% \times 70,000 + 1.88\% \times max ( ( 70,000 - 60,000 ), 0 ) [/math]
[math] \displaystyle (100\% - ( 50\% + 24\% ) ) \times 1.88\% \times 70,000 + 1.88\% \times max ( ( 10,000 ), 0 ) [/math]
[math] \displaystyle 26\% \times 1.88\% \times 70,000 + 1.88\% \times 10,000 [/math]
[math] \displaystyle 0.26 \times 0.0188 \times 70,000 + 0.0188 \times 10,000 [/math]
[math] \displaystyle 342.16 + 188.00 = 530.16 \text{ ISK} [/math]
You have a sell order for 13,000x tritanium at 6.00 ISK each.

You have already sold 3,000x tritanium so there are 10,000x tritanium left in the order. For total order value of 60,000 ISK.
You decrease the price to 5.00 ISK each. The new total order value becomes 50,000 ISK.
Your broker's fee % after skills and standing is 1.88%. Your Advanced Broker Relations level is IV so your relist fee is

[math] \displaystyle (100\% - ( 50\% + 6\% \times 4 ) ) \times 1.88\% \times 50,000 + 1.88\% \times max ( ( 50,000 - 60,000 ), 0 ) [/math]
[math] \displaystyle (100\% - ( 50\% + 24\% ) ) \times 1.88\% \times 50,000 + 1.88\% \times max ( ( -10,000 ), 0 ) [/math]
[math] \displaystyle 26\% \times 1.88\% \times 50,000 + 1.88\% \times 0 [/math]
[math] \displaystyle 0.26 \times 0.0188 \times 50,000 + 0.0188 \times 0 [/math]
[math] \displaystyle 244.40 + 0 = 244.40 \text{ ISK} [/math]

In some cases it can cost more to modify an old order than it costs to take it down and set up a new order.

You are trading in a player structure with 1% broker's fee(0.5% SCC surcharge + 0.5% owners percentage). Your Advanced Broker Relations level is 0.

You have a buy order for 1,000x item A for 1k ISK each. For an order value of 1,000,000 ISK
you update the order to 10k ISK each. For an order value of 10,000,000 ISK
Relist fee:

[math] \displaystyle (100\% - ( 50\% + 6\% \times 0 ) ) \times 1\% \times 10,000,000 + 1\% \times max ( ( 10,000,000 - 1,000,000 ), 0 ) [/math]
[math] \displaystyle (100\% - 50\% ) \times 1\% \times 10,000,000 + 1\% \times max ( ( 9,000,000), 0 ) [/math]
[math] \displaystyle 50\% \times 1\% \times 10,000,000 + 1\% \times 9,000,000 [/math]
[math] \displaystyle 0.5 \times 0.01 \times 10,000,000 + 0.01 \times 9,000,000 [/math]
[math] \displaystyle 0.5 \times 0.01 \times 10,000,000 + 0.01 \times 9,000,000 [/math]
[math] \displaystyle 50,000 + 90,000 = 140,000 \text{ ISK}[/math]

Broker fee:

[math] \displaystyle 1\% \times 10,000,000 [/math]
[math] \displaystyle 0.01 \times 10,000,000 = 100,000 \text{ ISK}[/math]

You will need to pay 140k ISK relist fee.
If you just create a new order you need to pay 100k ISK broker's fee.

Trading using the Market

The main method of trading is doing what other players can't be bothered to do: either they're too lazy or the opportunity cost is too big. Most market activity occurs in and around trade hubs.

Station Trading

Station trading is trading in its most basic form. You buy low and sell high.

Basically, you want to find items with a reasonable volume traded and a significant difference in buy and sell order prices within the same station. A large source of these types of items comes from NPC loot: players run missions, collect loot and just want to sell it for a quick buck, since they don't have the time or the Trade skills to set up sell orders for everything. On the other hand, players searching for one will pay quite a bit more since they can't get it anywhere else.

The simple rule of thumb is buy low and sell high. For station trading to be performed effectively, ensure that your sell order's gross profit minus your buy order's cost minus taxation still leaves a profit! Setting up buy and sell orders on multiple items minimizes risk of a market price crash on any one particular item. If you can make 20,000 ISK on an item and manage to trade 100 of these per day this will give you 2,000,000 ISK. Do this with 50 different products and this equates to 100,000,000 ISK per day!

Start small, reinvest, and you will soon see your total ISK grow very quickly. When you start working with billions of ISK you can trade higher priced items, which, in turn, can increase your margins and also price out some of the competition!

Station trading is all about volume. Your margins are often thin, and you'll need to save money everywhere you can. That means training Broker Relations and Accounting to 5.

Early in your trading career, these fractional percentages have a minimal impact i.e. if trained to level 5, you need to trade 667 million ISK of goods to earn back the 5 million ISK you spent on the Accounting skillbook. As you build your trading volume, however, these reductions are quite meaningful. Without getting into the math, training Broker Relations and Accounting to 5 will increase your profits by 11% (assuming you do not need to modify your offer).

Guides:

Cross region trading

Sometimes items have different values in different areas of space. You can buy low in one place and sell high in another place.

Basically, you buy some goods at one station, load them up into your hauling ship, carry them off to another station and sell them for profit. This works because most players don't have the ships or the time to move everything themselves. Finding good trade routes is hard (and changes on a daily basis), so most players use an external tool such as EVE Trade. However, there are usually certain routes that are profitable in general, such as hauling stuff from mission hubs, where mission runners dump their loots, to trading hubs where there is less supply.

See Hauling for more details on moving items from one place to another.

Guides:

Speculation

Speculation is the act of buying goods in the hope that their price will rise in the future. For example, PLEX prices can rise significantly during the summer holidays, so buying them earlier in the year and selling them during the summer can create a large profit. Speculation can also occur on patch changes or market stampedes.

Speculative market trading requires you to have good understanding on the wider EVE economy. Where do items come from, where do items go to, how does update on X affect item Y? Owning a crystal ball also helps.

Tips and Tricks

As with other aspects of EVE, the first rule of trading is to never invest what you can't afford to lose.

Finding items that are good to trade

There is an incredibly simple 3-step plan for finding good trading items:

  1. Click on a market category, and start looking at the orders and market details for each item
  2. Switch to another category, and keep looking at each item.
  3. Look at items some more.

With that said, it's important to know what you're looking for, and hopefully the burger method and the tips on this page should be enough. Generally, for station trading, you want to find items that:

  • have a high and fairly constant demand. You can check item demand by looking at the volume sold chart in the market details. While some items might have huge margins, if the volume sold is small or infrequent then there is much more risk associated with that item.
  • actually sell for the buy and sell orders listed. You can check this by looking at the market details and seeing whether the range of prices includes the current best buy and sell orders. The median price should be somewhere between the two.

Good items to trade are (depending on region and current market) meta-4 items (e.g. Arbalest launchers): they can't be produced and some of them have better or the same attributes as their T2 counterparts.

Remember to diversify between different items so that if your market breaks down you don't lose all your money.

Trend lines

Trend lines are used in the real world to help self brokers and stock brokers find out future events in the stock market, or more commonly known as a technical analysis. To use a trend line all you need to do is find a way to draw a line from peak to peak and trough to trough in the line graph on price history on an item. You will want to draw a line that hits at least 2 to 3 peaks and another that hits 2 to 3 troughs. This will tell you that the price should fall between the 2 lines and if the prices hits one of the lines or go a little past it then its time to buy or sell the item in EVE. The trick to this in both EVE and the real world is to do this and know what you're doing as fast and right as possible.

You should be able to look at a graph in 5 minutes and say if it's a good buy or sell for you if you're buying and selling short term. The only trick to using something is it must be straight. If worst comes to worst you can press print screen, paste the image into paint and make the trend line there but if you do this you will lose some valuable time.

Because there is so much information already out there here is a link that gets in detail on what you should do to make and read a trend line.

Lastly here is another video that shows you how the trend line works on line graphs.

References

  1. ^ Restructuring Taxes After Relief[2021-10-19] For older tax changes see "A long, long time ago..." elsewhere on this page.
  2. ^ Patch Notes: Version 22.01 Release 2024-07-25.1 - Marketplace taxes reduced to 4.5%. Down from 8%.
  3. ^ EVE help center: Broker Fee and Sales Tax
  4. ^ Patch notes: Version 21.05 Release 2023-06-21.1
  5. ^ EVE help center: Buy and Sell Orders