Market Report - Day 1641: Steady On

Day 1,641, 03:45 Published in USA Canada by Wilhem Klink


Market is very stable with only small movements in prices.
Raw materials hold steady. There's still inter-day downward pressure, but the eUSA market is still at the low end of the global market for raw materials, so foreign buyers (who buy in huge quantities) will continue to prop up the bottom, at least until the global raw material market slips below .09. The Raw Material Index holds at 40.

Food prices show decent improvement nearly everywhere as the Food Index pushes above 80 for the first time in 10 days closing up 1.22 to 80.61.

Weapon prices are mixed leaving the Weapon Index nearly dead even at 76.22

Wages drop $1, as the Wage Index slips to 101.69

Gold spends most of the day below 2,000 but rallies over 2,000 at the end pushing the Gold Index up 1.57 to 121.99.

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 drops for the day to 273.78. The jump in gold is more than enough to offset the small rise in food prices. Wages can't help and weapons were indifferent.
The 1600 AU Index:


And a closer look at the last 10 days:


Buying World-Wide
Yesterday we noted that the single world currency makes taking a job in a high net-wage country an easy way to line a player's pocket. We here at the 1600 Index are firm believers in get-rich-quick schemes, although most of them are lose-money-fast schemes. Certainly moving from eCanada to eUSA is an easy way to make $62 per day, its hardly "quick" in the get-rich-quick triple play. Its not really "rich" when you get down to it.

Another way to leverage the single world currency is buying and reselling. One doesn't need a market license if you BUY in a foreign country. Just move there and buy what is needed. This works well with huge buyers of raw materials. Say you have a few Q6 weapon factory with workers and require 12,000 raw materials. Raw materials are .10 in your country and .08 in eUSA. The difference in net cost is $240, which should offset nicely any moving costs. That's pure profit, especially since most countries do not tax raw materials..

Of course you can also buy the raw material for .08 and resell in your home country (without moving) at .10 for $240 profit. Most people don't have that sort of inventory space, though.

Does it work for finished goods as well?


The above chart shows Q6 weapons. The left side is sorted by net price after VAT is calculated, the right side by market price. One could (if one were eItalian) move to Brazil, buy a number of Q6s at 27.30, and resell them in Italy at 32.81, netting 27.89 after VAT thus making .51 per Q6.
But I wouldn't recommend it. That's a razor thin margin. Remember the "quick" in get-rich-quick? Its not here.

It is interesting to note the correlation of wages to market price. Lets look at yesterday's wage chart (it is not updated since yesterday so it may be 100😵:


The eUSA has the highest wage paid, but one of the lower selling prices of Q6 weapons. Same with Brazil. Both of those are 100% bonus countries, so a Q6 churns out 20, while eUK is at 20% with a Q6 making 12. But still the labor cost for eUSA per Q6 is $15 (300/20) and Brazil is $13.05 ($261/20) while eUK is 13.3 ($160/12). Given that raw material costs are roughly equal, the eUSA isn't earning its titans of industry much.

It would appear that the 1600 Index has wandered into a path worth exploring. It also appears that the 1600 Index needs to go his real life job, so I must bid farewell for now.


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