Trade 102: Station Trading
Template:Curriculum2010Project
Contents
Station Trading 101
Original transcription of class notes from Turhan Bey. Last live execution on 2010.05.09.
General Overview, Terminology, and Potential
Station Trading, aka Commodities Margin Trading
- set some Buy Orders, get them fulfilled, set some Sell Orders
- can be done while sitting docked in a station
- with skills, can be done remotely
- takes time and patience
- widely viewed as the greatest potential income source in the game
- limited by volume and competition
Differences
- not like other types of trading
- no immediate buys or sells, so no immediate gains
- no hauling, but may be combined with hauling for better profits
- normally set range to station-only to avoid hauling
Terminology
- Sell Order: top half of Market Data tab, an offer to sell at a certain price
- Buy Order: bottom half of Market Data tab, a request to buy at a certain price
Skills and Their Effects
Open Orders
- Trade (rank 1): +4 orders per level
- Retail (rank 2, req. Trade-2): +8 orders per level
- Wholesale (rank 4, req. Retail-5, Marketing-2): +16 orders per level
- Tycoon (rank 6, req. Wholesale-5, Marketing-4): +32 orders per level
Cost Reduction
- Broker Relations (rank 2, req. Trade-2): -5% broker fee per level
-- broker fee is 1% of the order price, so 0.75% at max skill
-- modified by corp and faction standing, especially faction
-- Broker Fee % = (1.000 % – 0.050 % × Skill) / e ^ (0.1000 × Faction + 0.04000 × Corp)
- Accounting (rank 3, req. Trade-4): -10% sales tax per level
-- tax is 1% of the Sell Order price, so 0.5% at max skill
-- buyer pays tax for Buy Orders
- Margin Trading (rank 3, req. Accounting-4): -25% cumulative escrow requirement for buy orders
-- (When is escrow collected for a zero wallet?)
Remote Trading
- Marketing (rank 3, req. Trade-2): create Sell Orders at STD
-- STD is current system at L1, 5 jumps at L2, 10 jumps at L3, 20 jumps at L4, current region at L5
- Procurement (rank 3 req. Marketing-2): create Buy Orders at STD (standard trade distance)
- Daytrading (rank 1, req. Trade-4): modify existing orders at STD
- Visibility (rank 3, req. Procurement-4): set a range for remote Buy Orders at STD, limited to STD
-- local Buy Orders may be set to any range
Market Window detailed description
Sidebar
- Range Filter, Show Only Available: browse only items available within the given range
-- only filters the Browse list and Groups tab
-- defaults to show only available in your station
- Browse tab: hierarchical list of market items
- Search tab: substring search for market items
- Quickbar tab: custom list of market items
-- New Folder button: organize Quickbar items into folders
Details Tab
- Market Data subtab: shows all Buy and Sell Orders in your region
-- each list may be sorted by any column
-- green Buy Orders are those within range
-- Export To File button: exports data to a CSV file (with TXT extension)
--- .../My Documents/EVE/logs/Marketlogs/
-- Place Buy Order button: creates a Buy Order, we'll use this later
- Price History subtab: graph or table of price history for the item
-- Graph: dual graphs of price over time, and volume over time
--- Price Over Time graph: values of sales over time, 8-bar scale on left
... can show or hide individual values by right-clicking
... can change the displayed time with the Time drop-down
... Moving Averages: average of all Buy and Sell Orders for N days prior
... Median Day Price: median of all Buy and Sell Orders for that day
... Donchian Channel: min-max envelope, highest high and lowest low for that day
.... (daily Donchian only? unable to use for establishing longs and shorts)
--- Volume Over Time graph: sales volume of item per day, 1-bar scale on right
-- Table: shows daily values for total orders, quantity, low, high, and average
--- can sort by any column
--- average values of buy and sell orders
Groups Tab
- shows all items in the current market group
-- descriptions, best prices and units available in filtered area
My Orders Tab
- show all of your current Buy and Sell Orders
- identical to My Wallet -> Orders, except cannot show orders and details simultaneously
- will go over its details later, when we are sure people have orders to see
Settings Tab
- Filtering Options: filters order lists by different criteria
-- Price: limit to a specific price range
-- Jumps: limit to within a specific jump range of current system
-- Quantity: limit to a specific quantity range
-- Sell Orders Deviation: filter out Sell Orders outside a given deviation of regional average
-- Buy Orders Deviation: filter out Buy Orders outside a given deviation of regional average
-- Filter by Skills: filter out items you do not have the skills to use
-- Filter by CPU and Power: filter out items that cannot be fit onto your current ship
-- Filter by Untrained Skills: filter out skillbooks that you already learned
-- Automatically Refresh Market Data: refresh market data every so often (5 min?)
Station Trading theory, execution, and differences
Theory
- buy low, sell high
- not directly/immediately, not like Haul Trading
- a station's highest Buy Orders will be lower than its lowest Sell Orders, minus any fees
-- otherwise, anybody can just make a direct trade for immediate profit
- assumption: people are fulfilling these orders
-- if we can buy at the highest buy and then sell at the lowest sell, we make a profit
Requirements
- knowledge
- initial investment (capital)
- location, location, location
Execution
- identify what items have a large margin between the high buy and low sell
- identify which of these are active and moves in large volume
- create Buy Orders that are just above the highest buy
-- wait until Buy Orders are fulfilled
- create Sell Orders that are just below the lowest sell
-- wait until Sell Orders are fulfilled
Market Orders Creation, Maintenance, and Fees
Creating a Buy Order
- to do this remotely, you need Procurement
- view the item in the Market window, Market Data tab
- take note of the high buy for your station, possibly nearby stations
- press Place Buy Order button at the bottom
-- if you are in space, then you must select from a list of stations
- Advanced Buy Order window
-- Location is the station where the Buy Order will be placed
-- if in a station, the Location will be your current station
--- can click on this to change locations
-- set Bid Price to greater than the noted high buy, oftentimes +0.01
-- set Quantity to whatever volume you wish to trade
-- set Minimum if you wish to have a minimum volume per order, almost always leave at 1
-- set Duration to the amount of time you wish to wait for the order to be fulfilled
--- usually set to max (3 months)
--- anything longer than how often you will update your orders is fine
-- set Range to how far you don't mind gathering the items, almost always leave at Station
--- fulfillment in stations at range will probably need to be manually retrieved
-- base Broker's Fee is 1% of the total order value, 100 isk minimum
--- modified by Broker Relations skill
-- verify Use Corp Account, Remember Settings
-- press Buy
Creating a Sell Order
- to do this remotely, you need Marketing
- right-click the item in your hangar and choose View Market Details
-- if you are remote, find the item in your Assets window and right-click there
- take note of the low sell for your station, possibly nearby stations
- right-click the item again and choose Sell This Item
- click on the Advanced button (defaults to Simple)
- Advanced Sell Order window
-- set Ask Price to less than the noted low sell, oftentimes -0.01
-- set Quantity to the number you wish to sell in a single order, almost always all of them
-- set Duration to the amount of time you wish to wait for the order to be fulfilled
--- usually set to max (3 months)
--- anything longer than how often you will update your orders is fine
-- base Broker's Fee is 1% of the total order value, 100 isk minimum
--- modified by Broker Relations skill
-- base Sales Tax is 1% of the total order value, 0.01 isk minimum
--- modified by Accouting skill
-- verify Use Corp Account, Remember Settings
-- press Sell
Modifying an Order
- to do this remotely, you need Daytrading
- open your Wallet window and go to the My Wallet tab, Orders sub-tab
-- recommended over Market window, My Orders tab so that you can see Market Details simultaneously
- right-click the item you wish to update and choose View Market Details
- compare the high buy if you are modifying a Buy Order
- compare the low sell if you are modifying a Sell Order
- right-click the item again and choose Modify Order
-- be very careful not to click Cancel Order
- set a New Sell Price
- press OK
- flat Broker's Fee of 100 isk, not modified by skills
- cannot modify any individual order more than every 5 minutes
Research, Identification, and Trends
Finding the Best Items to Station Trade
- anything which matches the following statistics:
-- high buy is LOWER than the low sell
-- as large a difference as possible between the high buy and low sell
-- moves in large volume over time
- other statistics which directly help: high demand
-- popular items that may be lost alot
-- "essentials" for gameplay
-- meta-4 items
- not necessarily high or low supply
Research and Identification
- The Anatomy of Market Research post: http://www.eve-ivy.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=102330#p102330
- (other examples? may take too much time, perhaps leave for 102 class)