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Well it's been a stunning 10 days in some of the markets with some clear market manipulation attempts as well as some big and disturbing numbers.

Let's get some acronyms explained as I tend to talk in shorthand.
TMS - Total Market stock or the combination of stock in the market as well as in company stock.
LAP - Lowest available price - and in the case of raw materials that would be the lowest unit price.
MAP - Moving average price - for all offering in the market - a check on LAP reliability.

and a short rant! Government companies selling in our market! It's one thing for government companies to make hospitals or defense system, or to produce weapons and gifts for government use - we could debate the benefits of that either way. But the failed government manufacturing company still advertising 997 jobs in the already overcrowded food market is just crazy. Then to be selling food in the market - WHY? Then there's Medicare Diamonds selling into the market when it has the funds to go get some OS licenses to sell into countries that don't have High Q diamonds.
Can we leave the already overcrowded markets to non government players please...

1) Diamonds
A massive surge in TMS from 4300 to 15500 in 10 days means there's some real pain coming soon. Even allowing for the inclusion of Medicare's big chunk - that's still nearly 1000 units per day overproduction and it's come from nowhere. The local gifting market is far too small to soak up the excess but the good news is that many countries have zero tariff on diamonds and many of the companies already have multiple licenses. LAP has gone from 43 to 39 cents per unit but that's back to the level it was in mid June. MAP has moved from 52 to 42 cents and that's a better indicator here. Methinks it's going down some more until there's lots of blood on the floor.

2) Gifts
- Q1 This is already a very small market but with wargames on the main customer has gone from a net buyer to overproducer. LAP has moved up sharply from 1.52 to 2.82 but TMS is building (730 to 920) so if company GM's think that's going to last they're dreaming. Again with the govt company stock increasing we can probably expect them to start offering product into the market soon.
Q2 gifts currently has zero active employees so it's hardly worth commenting on - very small mkt

3) Iron
There are currently 8 Q1, 7 Q2 and 1 Q3 Australian based Iron producing companies. The Q1 companies have 15 active employees in total. I apologise to the local companies, but we would be better off if all them were de-activated and we imported all of our iron from high Q regions. Almost all of our weapons companies already have supply arrangements in place anyway.
There are 2 internationals selling in the market and they are the price leaders. On market health, it's not looking so good either. LAP stayed around 89 cents and TMS stayed pretty steady at just under 3000 units over the 10 day period - up from previous levels but not badly. Iron held in weapons companies during the same period moved from 5000 to over 9000 units.

4) Weapons
- Q1 Firstly my database is still building and 2 companies uncovered today added 600 units to TMS which makes the figures unreliable. will be better next time.
TMS has moved from 680 to 1850 in 10 days - even taking off 600 units, that's bad for GMs. The good news is it's a price sensitive demand so lower prices combined with wargames will soak up more units. LAP moved from 6.10 up to 6.60 and then down to 5.95 during the period.

- Q2 At 0.25 gold our Q2 weapons are amongst the cheapest in the world at the moment as a price war continues. LAP was 15.75 on June 21st and now it's 10.65 AUD. TMS is stable to falling so that's probably as low as you're going to see, in case you were thinking about stocking up. (and no - I'm not in that market myself)

- Q3,4,5 I have only found one of each of these weapons companies based in Oz so it's a bit hard to call that a market. All are selling reasonably competitively in a small but comfy market.

5) Grain
From a simple look at the grain market, you'd say there's a good recovery happening with TMS falling from a peak of 10k to just under 7k over 2 weeks. LAP has tracked up from 32 cents to 35 cents and MAP a more substantial 12 cents 42 to 54 cents. The myth is shattered when you discover that a few food companies have been buying big and total units held by food companies has gone from 21k to 27 k in the same period. So even though 12 of the 25 located food companies are dormant - we're still over producing.

6) Food
- Q1 A stunning thing happened to the price war in Q1 food a week ago - everyone surrendered and the LAP jumped from 68 cents to 1.05 in a day. Now this is a market that I am in, so I can promise you there was no collusion on my part. TMS has fallen from around 3100 to 2500 units, but the price was never going to hold at those levels and already today it's back to 95 cents.

- Q2 has gone the other way and it just took one company to move into the level. TMS has gone from 750 to 1250 and the price has dropped from 2.20 to 1.98. It will probably fall a bit further still before it stabilises.

I think that's enough from me - I promise the next bulletin will be shorter as it will just focus on the market changes without the explanations.

SS