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The market continues to show modest price improvements for the second day.

Raw materials, while still facing downward pressure, manage to improve for weapons, pushing the Raw Material Index up to 42.22. World weapon raw material prices hold at the .10cc level. While there is often .09 or .08 offers, they are quickly gone. The global nature of buying and with nearly all countries having .10cc weapon raw, any offers below that will go to huge RM buyers who park in the eUSA.

Food increases on the upper half (Q4-Q6), but weakness on the lower pushes the Food Index modestly lower, down .61 to an even 80.

Weakness across the lower half in weapons is offset buy a strong uptick in Q5 & Q6 as the Weapon Index rises .45 to 76.37.

Wages regain their upward momentum, pushing to 302cc, a new 46-day high leading the Wage Index to 102.37

Gold slips back to nearly 2,000cc. Inter-day pricing is generally under 2,000b but is unable to stay there. The Gold Index drops to 120.72

The Index:


The 1600 AU Index
Based off of the amount of gold a player could earn in a year by working at market wage, selling 20 weapons, 200 food (both Q6) and 1750 raw materials (split 50/50 food/weapons) the 1600 AU Index is flat. The strong downward move in gold is offset by generally weaker market prices and the 1600 AU Index pushes to a 10-day high. Lower gold coupled with a boost in raw materials, weapon, and wages overwhelm to lone downer, food.

The 1600 AU Index

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Over the past few days the 1600 Index has noted the global nature of the job market using this static graph (it has note been updated)

This older chart noted that the net wages to workers differed in various eCountries and all one needs to do to reap higher wages in move to a high net-wage country. Yes, the eUSA has the highest income tax of the listed countries, but it also has the highest gross wage meaning the amount actually pocketed by a worker (net wage) is topped by very few countries and even then, not by much.

Then we followed with the global nature of buying & reselling items. One does not need a market license to BUY in another country (only to sell there). It is possible to buy products in one country and resell them in your home country at a profit, although its not a huge profit and there are always risks.

Lastly the crack staff at The 1600 Index was intrigued by the variations between countries. eUSA wages are so high, what does that do to profitability of companies?

We slapped together this graph to illustrate:


Following along in the eUSA (about halfway down):
Market wage was 299 (this was taken late on Day 1641);
Production is 20 Q6 tanks;
That makes wage costs 14.95 per tank;
It takes 60 raw material to make one tank and at .10cc each that's 6cc of raw material per tank;
That means it costs 20.95 per Q6 tank;
At a market price of 27.17, there's a gross profit of 6.22;
There's a 1% VAT which comes to .27cc, leaving a net profit of 5.95 per Q6.
Since a worker makes 20 Q6, the total profit per worker is 118.91.

Notice something about the chart right off? There's three ONE countries heading it up. Countries with low bonuses are at a huge disadvantage; all the countries with no bonuses are at the bottom along with the eUK, whose wages have jumped from 160 to 215 over the last few days.

Now granted, not many players hire workers. It probably to the eUSA's best interest to have high income tax and low VAT. The self-supply or small-time producer benefits from that 1% VAT when they sell their own wares.

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Moving Averages

For those unfamiliar with a "moving average", in the following charts, The blue line represents the market price at 3:00 eRep time. The red line in the 5-day moving average (average of the last 5-days) of market prices. What that tells us is whether prices are trending downward (the market price is below the moving average) or trending higher (the market price is above the moving average).

Going downmarket where we all start:
Weapons



Both weapons have moved back to the 5-day. Prices have stabilized but are still in a down-cycle (we haven't actually seen an "up-cycle").

Foo😛



Hey! Q1 food has an up-cycle. Big spike in food on 1640-41, jumping from .40 to .48. Kinda cool to see a increasing 5-day.

And the bonus 5-day, gold. Still in a down-cycle after the company upgrade sale.




Note: prices are reflective of a percentage of Day 1600's price (Hence the "1600 Index"). In other words if an index is quoted at 88, that days price is 88% of the price on Day 1600. Except the 1600 AU Index which represents an amount of gold one can buy given market conditions as noted in that section.

Methodology on prices: prices are taken at 3:00 eRep time. The price is the average price of buying 1,000 Raw materials, 500 Food, 100 weapons (at each quality level), and 8 gold, plus the market wage less any fraction of cc (so 240, rather than 240.1). All qualities are standardized to Q1 (per hit or per health).

Sic transit gloria mundi