"Trading is a bad career with terrible returns"

Yes that title is meant to be sarcastic, I'm perfectly aware people make billions each day on the markets :P

Over the last few days I had noticed a steadily decreasing supply of Cynosural Field Generators in Amarr. Generally the buy orders were around 1.5mil and the cynos were selling for approximately 2mil. Not greatest of margins I guess, but it was a steady income stream due to the constant demand for more generators. (Cyno frigates are popped almost constantly in LowSec, that's alot of generators to replace).

But the supply in Amarr was getting low, and the demand was still steady. I saw my chance to make a bit of extra ISK, and bought out all the other guys flogging cyno generators. I then relisted them (approx 20 of them, plus a few of mine from buy orders) at 2.5 million. Not a huge increase, but I didn't want to scare off potential buyers with a sudden price hike. Despite the half a mil increase, the cynos were still flying off the shelves. I saw the potential to drive the price higher and fleece even more ISK off these players, but I had barely any stock left and my buy orders seemed to be running dry. Profit was slipping through my hands like sand...

Think about how often these things are used per hour o.O

It was then I realised that I was only nine jumps from Jita, the trade hub of EVE. It's not like I needed to source my supply purely from buy orders. I quickly signed in my Jita price check alt while sending Zendrak off in his Bestower towards the Forge. If the price was higher in Jita (unlikely to be honest), I could just turn him back. My alt signed in, and I loaded up the market details for cyno generators as fast as I could type. Buy orders were pretty much identical to Amarr at 1.5 million, but the lowest sell order was only 1.9mil.

Freaking jackpot.


Zendrak was already halfway to Jita, and I prayed all the way there that nobody would notice the gap on the Amarr market until I had taken advantage of it. I bought 90 cyno field generators in Jita for about 170 mil  and hot-footed it back to Amarr. (I could have brought back more, but I wasn't expecting to shift more than a hundred units before somebody else noticed and jumped in too. Also I didn't want to make myself a gank target for all those Tornados chilling in Perimeter) By this point, my personal supplies back home had run out entirely, but another enterprising trader had put up thirty or so generators for 3mil each.

0.01 ISK wars go?

Apparently not. I assume he didn't check his orders often enough, because by the same time tonight, I've already sold 87 units at about 2.99 mil each (literally 0.01 ISK under his 3mil price). Other people have noticed the gap now, and I'm having to update my orders much more frequently to sell these last few, but it's too late. I've already made a fairly impressive profit :P

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For those who like numbers, here's the exact figures (not including taxes because I'm lazy):

90 units bought in Jita for 173,636,712.53 ISK (1,929,296.80 ISK per unit)

Sell order set up in Amarr for 2,999,999.99 ISK per unit (269,999,999.00 ISK in total if all of them sell)

Predicted profit is therefore in the region of 269,999,999.00 - 173,636,712.53 

=  96,363286.47 ISK (Minus buy/sell taxes)

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I haven't got all of this profit yet, (three cynos are still on the market) but frankly I've still made atleast ninety million in the course of 24 hours. And all it needed was about twenty minutes work before I went to bed (flying to Jita and back) and then checking my order occasionally the next day, (not that it needed updating much). And it's made me about the same as three Incursion HQ sites with a far smaller inital investment (173 million vs billion ISK faction battleships is hardly a close thing) and far less effort.

So whats the moral of this story?


- When trading, jump on any opportunity that comes your way and drain as much ISK as you can from it while it lasts


Miniumum effort, maximum returns. I think I'll spend my 90 million on some more PvP ships :)