22 replies to this topic

[Humungous]

I'm curious what kind of income people are getting with sustained, non-speculative TP trading? By sustained and non-speculative, I mean that the method is very low-risk and can sustain the income through normal weekdays. Clearly, successful speculation during volatile market periods such as in-game events can make heaps and heaps of gold.

I've seen people talking about 1-3 gold per hour, which seems pretty darn low. And then there are people talking like they make hundreds of gold per week on only a few hours of trading.

My current method goes at about 1 hour of my time and ~24 hours of market time to get about a ~20g profit on ~50g invested (I'm sticking to 50g at a time, for now, as it's a relatively new process for me, but I believe I can scale it to beyond 100g with only ~20 more minutes of in-game time).

Is this particularly good? I have zero marketing background or knowledge beyond basic terms like "speculative", but I have enough programming skills to program my own made-up version of analyzing the market, so I'm really curious what the guys who know what they're doing are able to make? Or do those people not waste time playing in virtual markets for fun?

Thanks for any insights!

Edit: A good real-world income clobbers even 20g per hour, of course, but this IS for fun, after all

Edited by Humungous, 30 November 2012 - 06:08 PM.

[Sprinks]

If you're investing 50g and getting 20g in return, that's fairly close to what I'm getting. I rarely invest >30g though. I'm not very scientific with my methods and am not performing speculative rocket science by any means.

I tend to play w/the market usually 1-2 hours per day. If people are rolling in gold and making tons of money, I wish they'd share some of their knowledge. I'm of the opinion that the % of the population that has >300g has obtained it through farming multiple hours per day, speculation, pump and dump or have been really lucky using the MF.

Myself, I've tried the MF and salvaging methods, and while they can turn a profit, they're not safe enough for me. It's really too bad that crafting isn't more profitable (although I know some areas of some professions can be).

[drkn]

Invest 50g and get a 20g profit over a 24h period after investing only an hour of your time at first?
And you deem it's low and not enough?

[Lasareth]

I have no idea how to make 20g profit off of 50g investment. I just have long term investments that I'm crossing my fingers and hoping and praying work out.

[Mamado]

I salvage for Ectos infrequently, but if I had to estimate the time placing / cancelling bids and the actual salvagin, I'd put it at 3-4g per hour.

The rate at the mystic forge is a bit metter, maybe 5-6g an hour.

I make most of my money ~20g per hour (investing no more than 100g at a time) when playing the margin.

Speculation is nice for making gold, but you can't really measure it at a gold / hour rate because it is so long term. Even when I invested in gems and earned around 30% on it, I held the gems for nearly a month. Speculation is best when it's a hedge against inflation.

I do make videos about the trading post- I have them posted in the thread titled "I'm a Capitalist. I love Guild Wars 2."

[lmaonade]

20g on 50g is a really good turn out, compared to most players I mean, I know hardcore traders are able to produce double or higher their daily start

I'm an extremely specialized and casual trader and I get about 20 to 25s on the gold, I recently got into TP trading since I have less time to actually play the game and therefore wanted a slow but sustainable income while I'm offline, I trade anywhere from 3 to 5 gold playing the margin on 2 goods that I trust and a few more that I dabble in and switch out, and consistently make about 20% profits, which isn't all that bad, I thought it would be difficult and boring at first since I'm usually very impatient, but the TP game turned out to be easy to get into

[Humungous]

I'm finding that weekends are no longer the money days, so my 40% rates are really only during the first half of the week. At least, that's been the case on the last two weekends.

And turn around isn't consistently 24 hours anymore, either. This last week, I've had several sales take 3-4 days. Not a big deal for me, at this point, as I've stopped playing the TP daily. But for anyone wondering, I'm not getting what I was 2 weeks ago (same ~40% returns, but considerably longer turn around).

[Sprinks]

Humungous, on 11 December 2012 - 06:54 AM, said:

I'm finding that weekends are no longer the money days, so my 40% rates are really only during the first half of the week. At least, that's been the case on the last two weekends.

And turn around isn't consistently 24 hours anymore, either. This last week, I've had several sales take 3-4 days. Not a big deal for me, at this point, as I've stopped playing the TP daily. But for anyone wondering, I'm not getting what I was 2 weeks ago (same ~40% returns, but considerably longer turn around).

I've found the same. I imagine that it will continue to likely get worse until after the holidays.

[Humungous]

I've been finding new methods that are netting me upwards of 40g per hour with about a 6 hour turnaround, and they're really easy. Once I get my guild's cash up to a happy place, I'll provide everyone the method and the math. As more people do it, it will crater the method, but the cleverer folks will see how to extend it quite a ways beyond the initial and obvious stuff.

And it can be expanded. I suspect there will be ways to get it closer to 80g in an hour if you have a market analysis tool to help you. But I was able to do 40g/hour with no extra help, not even spidy (was testing it so that I could easily share it with my guildmates, rather than wrapping a GUI around my custom tools).

I've only spent an hour on it, too, so there could be improvements to the method. Like I said, I'll happily share once we're done with it!

Edited by Humungous, 19 December 2012 - 10:23 PM.

[The Shadow]

Remember the Karka event were all pre-cursors dropped really low?

Wait for that to happen again. We all know it will. It's just a matter of time.

The people who make loads of dosh for minimal effort are those who've made enough money (by whatever means) to invest and monopolize in the pre-cursor market.

[Veltoss]

Humungous, on 19 December 2012 - 10:22 PM, said:

I've been finding new methods that are netting me upwards of 40g per hour with about a 6 hour turnaround, and they're really easy. Once I get my guild's cash up to a happy place, I'll provide everyone the method and the math. As more people do it, it will crater the method, but the cleverer folks will see how to extend it quite a ways beyond the initial and obvious stuff.

And it can be expanded. I suspect there will be ways to get it closer to 80g in an hour if you have a market analysis tool to help you. But I was able to do 40g/hour with no extra help, not even spidy (was testing it so that I could easily share it with my guildmates, rather than wrapping a GUI around my custom tools).

I've only spent an hour on it, too, so there could be improvements to the method. Like I said, I'll happily share once we're done with it!

And I'm sure we'd all love to hear it, I know I would. Getting even half that, or 1/6th of that, would be amazing.

[Dzekis Cians]

Guys teach me how to make 2-3g in hour. Im new and i really would like to know what you guys do for make that profit

[Veltoss]

Dzekis Cians, on 05 January 2013 - 11:10 AM, said:

Guys teach me how to make 2-3g in hour. Im new and i really would like to know what you guys do for make that profit

http://www.guildwars...ml#.UOhRD4njlOQ

This website has more than enough to teach you how to make 2-3g an hour or so, but again as already mentioned, it takes money to make money.

[Gilles VI]

Dzekis Cians, on 05 January 2013 - 11:10 AM, said:

Guys teach me how to make 2-3g in hour. Im new and i really would like to know what you guys do for make that profit

Running AC (the dungeon) nets ~4g/hour, while also giving karma and tokens for armor/weapons.

[astemalineath]

Gilles VI, on 05 January 2013 - 04:29 PM, said:

Running AC (the dungeon) nets ~4g/hour, while also giving karma and tokens for armor/weapons.

That's not a good sustained income rate for NON SPECULATIVE TP TRADING IS IT

[Gilles VI]

astemalineath, on 05 January 2013 - 09:16 PM, said:

That's not a good sustained income rate for NON SPECULATIVE TP TRADING IS IT

There isn't a single "non-speculative" TP way to make gold.
Should there be one everyone would do it untill it's gone.

+ that person did not specify he only wanted TP ways to make money.

Edited by Gilles VI, 05 January 2013 - 09:35 PM.

[Humungous]

Gilles VI, on 05 January 2013 - 09:34 PM, said:

There isn't a single "non-speculative" TP way to make gold.
Should there be one everyone would do it untill it's gone.

QFT, however, they do come and go, as in a method will be worthless one week, hugely profitable for a few days, then worthless again. They're not senseless: they're always based on trading gold for time taken to transform a good into another. So when people cycle off a method, it starts to increase in value again. I've bounced between $$ making methods many times.

As far as the method that was getting me 40g/hour, that definitely dried up (though 10g/hour is still quite doable). Also, after this snowflake business, I'm not sure yet how Anet would view the method, so I've shelved it for the time being, and won't be posting it (if they decide it's ban-able, and I shared it, I get banned ).

I don't think it's against the EULA, as I can't see how it would damage the economy. It's not a crafting loop, like the snowflake was (though it wasn't entirely, either, as it burned through mithril ore, which is why I'm shying away from this again). Nor is it a bug.

As it is, I have enough $$ to buy what I want, so I'm not doing much on the TP anymore. We'll see how Ascended gear changes all that

Edited by Humungous, 07 January 2013 - 07:21 PM.

[Daesu]

Gilles VI, on 05 January 2013 - 09:34 PM, said:

There isn't a single "non-speculative" TP way to make gold.
Should there be one everyone would do it untill it's gone.

Actually there are.

You can earn some gold through crafting.  There are still some crafting formula where the crafting costs are less than the maximum offer unit price so you are guaranteed a profit.

The best profits for these are usually recipes that involve dungeon tokens, which is not really sustainable.  Then there are recipes that require you to acquire the tray/satchel mystic forge recipes, you would need an investment to get those recipes if you can slowly work this to a profit over time.  Then there are those random recipes that sometimes would belong to this class due to changing trading values.  

Take the level 20 Devout Shoes as an example, crafting cost is 4s24c, yet the offer prices are:

Edited by Daesu, 06 February 2013 - 01:33 AM.

[iNko]

those of u who make as much or even more as op by playing tp, do u guys make hundreds of orders/sales (of different items) during ur session, or is it a  couple of items? I tried playing tp by flipping low lvl rare armors, and i needed to make hundreds of orders/reorders (of different items) and then i needed to sell all those items, witch many of didnt sell at first so i needed to resell it again.. The whole process was just so tiring and boring, in a week i just couldnt do it any more (the profit wasnt even that great, i could make more profit by just farming cof p1..)

[Daesu]

iNko, on 05 February 2013 - 10:34 PM, said:

those of u who make as much or even more as op by playing tp, do u guys make hundreds of orders/sales (of different items) during ur session, or is it a  couple of items? I tried playing tp by flipping low lvl rare armors, and i needed to make hundreds of orders/reorders (of different items) and then i needed to sell all those items, witch many of didnt sell at first so i needed to resell it again.. The whole process was just so tiring and boring, in a week i just couldnt do it any more (the profit wasnt even that great, i could make more profit by just farming cof p1..)

I can't answer for the rest, but I went with another more sustainable method than just flipping.  I tried flipping and ended up with the same problems as you did so I ditched it.  Flipping is risky, sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.

Of course it is possible for some guy to get lucky and win big by flipping but that doesn't mean it is a sustainable form of income.  Flipping may make sense if you heard that an impactful change is coming from ArenaNet that would make your particular flipping activities profitable.

Edited by Daesu, 05 February 2013 - 11:44 PM.

[Lasareth]

I think you are mistaking flipping with speculative trading. Speculative trading predicts mid- to long-term changes while flipping is profiting off of a near-instant or short-term buy/sell relationship. Speculative trading is inherently more risky than flipping and is more of a gamble by nature.

Flipping itself is not risky if you understand the balance between buy/sell volume, price, and speed. The most reliable income comes from low return, high rate-of-trade items whose prices don't frequently change. The more "specific" your flip is (i.e. level 20 masterwork boots vs heads of cabbage), the slower the rate of trade and the more risk you are inheriting of the item not selling (or fluctuating past the profit margin). The least reliable but highest profit margin flips are items like exotic minipets, whose sell volume and speed is extremely slow but has the highest profit margin.

Buy orders with flips are usually inversely proportional to their cost and sell speed, for me. The cheaper and faster something is, the more I buy of it. It's a strong way to make anything near an adequate income with considerable safety.

[Daesu]

Lasareth, on 06 February 2013 - 09:29 AM, said:

I think you are mistaking flipping with speculative trading. Speculative trading predicts mid- to long-term changes while flipping is profiting off of a near-instant or short-term buy/sell relationship. Speculative trading is inherently more risky than flipping and is more of a gamble by nature.

Flipping itself is not risky if you understand the balance between buy/sell volume, price, and speed. The most reliable income comes from low return, high rate-of-trade items whose prices don't frequently change. The more "specific" your flip is (i.e. level 20 masterwork boots vs heads of cabbage), the slower the rate of trade and the more risk you are inheriting of the item not selling (or fluctuating past the profit margin). The least reliable but highest profit margin flips are items like exotic minipets, whose sell volume and speed is extremely slow but has the highest profit margin.

Buy orders with flips are usually inversely proportional to their cost and sell speed, for me. The cheaper and faster something is, the more I buy of it. It's a strong way to make anything near an adequate income with considerable safety.

You can earn gold from flipping but there is no guarantee that you wont be undercut by others especially on your sell orders when you have already paid your listing fees.  If you flip a lot, there is also a higher chance that you will not sell some of your goods even after waiting a week or more.

As long as there is a chance of this happening, then there is an element of luck in it and it is not guaranteed profit and therefore speculative by definition.  Otherwise, name me one item that has guaranteed flipping profit.

Edited by Daesu, 06 February 2013 - 05:17 PM.

[Deadringers1]

as Lasareth said I think some are getting mistaken between "flipping" and "speculative trading".

I myself do a bit of both but mostly flip stuff.

If I flip things it will generally be in the 10's of thousands of items at low prices but I'll make about 10% profit on what ever I flip.

So I put in 30 G and I will get back 33 G.

This is something I do just log onto the TP, buy my usual items at the beginning of the day, come lunch time I put a shit load up for sale.
Then come evening time I collect my profit for the day.
time spent = minimal and the profits speak for themselves.

THAT is what is called flipping.


THEN you have speculative trading:
e.g. I bought lots of snow flakes over the xmas period at around the 50-60 C mark.  Waited a few days and there had been a huge influx of cogs and other items which people need to use these snow flakes - this meant that I sold these stacks of snow flakes that I had at 1silver 25 copper each...NICE!