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As the markets settle in post-rocket frenzy, there's a lot of settling (rea😛 dropping prices) to go around.

Food raw materials stay at their historic lows for the week. Weapon raw materials push higher then surrender their gains leaving the Raw material Index right where it was last Saturday at 46.67.

Food guts out another tough week hitting another record low before rebounding to eek out a slight gain, leaving the Food Index up .05 to 60.33. Gains in Q2-Q4 offset strong losses in the high-end (Q5 & Q6) which both drop over 5% for the week.

Weapon prices went into wholesale retreat with prices of each level dropping by at least 9%, except Q2, the star of the week only dropping 6%. Mid-range weapons (Q3 & Q4) show the biggest reduction as they plummet from their rocket-induced highs, down 39% and 25%, respectively. The mid-range weapons are now considerably off their pre-rocket pricing. Q3, for example, maintained roughly a $11.50 price for 36 days prior to the Rocket Factory. The recent price is $9.75. and its still dropping. The Weapon Index drops 15.67 points to 67.00, a record low for weapons.

Wages continue their fall after peaking at nearly $400 during the recent rocket mission (10 days ago). Pushed by higher raw material prices,wages have shed nearly 25% of their value for the week as the Wage Index drops 26.11 to 101.69.

Gold fought on and held just under 2000cc for a few days, then threw in the towel and started a full-on retreat. The Gold Index falls to 115.36, a level not seen since the introduction of Q3 Training Facilities pushed gold from 1870 to 2200 on April 24.

The Big Chart:


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 having trouble finding direction as food, wages, and weapons drop along with gold. The 1600 AU Index stands at 275.68, down 15.73.

The chart:





As the 1600 Index has noted in past editions, food and weapon prices seem to follow a multiple of their quality level. That is, a Q2 generally is priced at twice a Q1's price. A Q3 generally is triple the Q1 price, etc. Of course the intro of the rocket factory knocked that all pear-shaped, but the market is a surprisingly resilient beast and has restored some level of sanity to prices. Witness the Food levels:

Lots of fluctuations, especially since Q1 tends to be over-valued in relation to the other levels (more on that latter).

Next, the weapons graph:


Looks like someone banged the table on an otherwise steady line. Note Q4 rising to nine times Q1 prices. The levels has since come back to something resembling normal, although, compared to Q1 prices, Q6 is acting like a Q8. That would seem to indicate one of two things: Q1 is undervalued, or there's still room for Q5 & Q6 to drop in price.
Note that Q3 was steady-on at 3X the price of Q1 for something on the order of 80 days. The rocket factory introduction sent Q3 to nearly 8x Q1's price and then Q3 worked its ways back to below 3X the Q1 price. Q4 jumped about but is still above its normal 4X multiple.

The following chart shows the Q1 price as of Saturday morning 3:00 eRep time. It then runs a multiple for each level to see how the market is undervaluing or overvaluing a level.



Weapons show a high valuation for Q4-Q6, with Q6 being nearly 35% overvalued. Of course a Q6 weapon has more power along with more uses, making it more valuable than just six Q1s.

Food hits the numbers on Q4 & Q5 spot-on. Even Q6 isn't too far off.
For comparison, the multiples on Day 1657 (aka 03 June) well before the rocket factory influence:

Much tighter spreads on weapons, a bit looser on food.



A repeat look at self-employment profits. Food, riding the low raw material prices, have become more profitable than weapons for those companies worked at only by their owner. Q1 food companies bring in $51 after VAT besting their Q1 weapon companies by nearly $20. The gap peaks at Q3 where self-employed foodies knock back $74 dollars more than weapon producers and then shrinks down to $25 more by Q6, but at no point does food make less than weapons. The example includes either the cost of raw materials at market, or the lost revenue from using raw materials that one would otherwise be able to sell.



Of course the higher raw material price helps with raw material companies' profits.

What about hiring employees? After dealing with losses induced by sky-high weapon prices, food employers (Q6 anyway) have gained he upper hand. Raw material prices are again the culprit, helping to drive wages lower and providing profit to the food factory owner:


Neither are enjoying the $100+ profits of the past, but still in positive territory. What about Q5 employers?



Food is coming back, but both food & weapons are squarely in the loss category.

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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).

Wages. They have steadily dropped over the last two weeks:



As has gol😛

One can see the pause at just about 2000cc for a few days before heading south.


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