Hello, all. I’m a fairly new player and I’d like to learn more about making money through the market, whether that’s selling stuff I’ve built in industry or taking advantage of trade opportunities. I understand (very) basic aspects of economy and finances and I’ve read enough to know that no one in Eve is going to reveal their trade secrets, and I wouldn’t ask them to. But to be honest, when I look at the market tools in game, and the few times I’ve perused the third party tools, I’m just overwhelmed with information and I’m not sure how to parse it all. For instance, there is the market history in-game and you have the donchian channel, though I’m not sure what that exactly is and the real significance of the other lines and bars. So I’m not looking for anyone to tell me what to buy or sell, but I’m wondering if there is a step by step guide that can introduce me to the tools that are already at my disposal in game. Other guides I’ve looked at start (at least I feel) way above this basic level and I really need to start at the very ABCs of the thing, if that makes sense.
Can anyone give me a rundown on this or point me to a very new player novice-at-numbers tutorial to get me started? I look forward to figuring out what to build/sell on my own, but before I can do that, I need to understand the information that’s being presented to me.
Not sure if you have seen this tutorial on station trading as an Alpha player. Personally I found it quite enlighting even though it’s only basic stuff.
Eve is a commodity market and commodity markets tend to be cyclical. Prices will fall as long as supply exceeds demand, however there is a point where producers will stop supplying the market because they are losing money. Under priced supply will dry up and the price will rise until supply again exceeds demand and the cycle repeats. Market history lets you study this cycle for products you are interested in and decide whether the product is worth selling given your production cost and market volume.
Make sure you include trading frictions in your cost - they are significant for new players. Seller always pays the transaction tax. Player who creates the order (buy or sell) always pays the brokerage.
As a new player, look for items where you are not competing with loot. Most modules, for example, have meta variants that are better and often cheaper than the T1 items you can build. Things like containers, scripts and rigs work well. The blueprints are cheap and easily researched. Raw material and finished goods are easy to haul using the basic industrial you got in the career missions.