Market Report - good news, for once

Day 1,640, 03:40 • Published in USA Canada • by Wilhem Klink

So this is what an up market looks like. We here at the 1600 Index almost forget the lines can move not only down, but up too. Refreshing!

Raw materials don't move up, but they don't move down either although there's pressure to do so as the inter-day numbers clearly saw .08cc. The Raw Material Index holds at 40.

Food shows modest improvement on the low end (Q1 & Q2) with stable prices elsewhere. The Food Index jumps to 79.39, up 1.82.

Weapon prices strengthen nearly across the board with strong improvement in Q6 leading the way. The Weapon Index improves 0.59 to 76.21.

Wages hold steady leaving the Wage Index at 102.03.

Gold slips under 2,000cc to push the Gold Index down to 120.42.

The 1600 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 improves to 276.79. Falling gold prices coupled with improved market prices makes buying gold a better value than anytime in the last 8 days.

The 1600 AU chart:



Wages

It's puzzled us here at the 1600 Index, this rise in wages has. A few months ago eRepublik used to have local currency. This writer remembers being in eCanada as it fell to ePoland and suddenly getting paid in ePolish Zloty rather than eCanadian dollars. One had to convert to gold or try to find a reasonable conversion. Now, of course, we have a country currency, which was standardized to be all the same. So it doesn't matter what money you get, its always in your local currency.

With that in mind, we went looking at world wages, income tax, and net wages. This chart lays out the countries we looked at:



If one is in the eUSA, market wages is 301cc and, with an income tax of 15%, a worker ends up with 255.85 in their pocket. But unlike food or weapons where one needs an expensive market license to sell in another country, anyone can earn a country's wage simply by moving there. The worker is paid in their own currency so there is no inconvenient exchange rate or gold conversion to deal with.

Which then begs the question: why wouldn't a worker move from a low net-wage country to a high net-wage country, get a job, and then move back to their home country? A player can move from, say, eItaly (where they net 144cc) to eFrance where they can make 56cc more. Sure, there is a moving fee, but since Italy & France border each other, it is probably not more than 40cc (20cc each way), leaving 16cc profit on the first day and 56cc each additional. It may be expensive for an eTurk to move to eBrazil (and back) but the 96cc bump in pay may be worth it over time.

The same with ONE countries (in red on the chart). eUK & ePoland share a border. An eUK player can pick up 77cc by moving to a ePolish occupied eUK region and getting that sweet ePolish gig.



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)

Back on the high-end (Q5 & Q6) today:
Weapons:




Q5 is still meandering lower, but Q6 saw a nice improvement in price.

And foo😛




The 5-day moving average has nearly caught up and we've seen some stability in pricing.










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