Trade 102: Station Trading

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)