Placentica Posted November 22, 2015 Share Posted November 22, 2015 tl;dr - see bolded part Sup guys. How are you? I'm doing fine. I'm here to talk about the markets. The most sexy aspect of our wonderful world. When I sleep, I dream of the demand/supply curve and inflationary pressures. It hugs me like a warm blanket at night. Oh how I love you Ray Dalio. As many of you know, I was a very active trader in the early stages of this current round. For the first 6+ months, before a lot of the other trader/scalpers figured out how to make money on the resource trade buy/sell spreads, I would actively trade those spreads to quite a large profit building my nation to be the biggest in the game. /end brag. Someone told me there is a topic talking about if I ever did use trade-bots back in the day. I did not, I don't know how. And doing it manually took a large amount of my time, and that's a huge reason why I've stopped doing the scalping. Other big reasons: 1) The profit you can make goes way down as you grow. $1m to a new nation is a lot of money, but $1m to me now isn't that much. 2) When I formed Alpha I committed to myself to not use that alliance to funnel my nation's growth, but our growth would come at my expense, hence why I dropped off the top 10. I switched play styles from being focused on my own growth to focus on my alliance's growth. When I can buy an alliance friend a city for $5m, I was less likely to buy myself one for $50m, or spend $3m on just 100 infra when I can get 1000 infra to someone for $7m basically. 3) I also didn't want to give my alliance a bad reputation, as generally people don't like scaplers, and I can see that now. Now my buying is usually in bulk for alliance stockpiling or just seeing a price irregularity (price spikes, lack of demand killing the price, etc). 4) And this is the reason I'm posting........the spreads have wonderfully tightened up as I figured they would as more players joined the game. Take food for example, spreads are currently just $1. There were only two resources with a $150-200 spread at the time of this post. This is excellent to see, as it allows people to buy and sell freely without always having to put in buy orders to get a decent price (only to be out bid by $1) and have that order not filled. When I was trading I'd easily see $500 spreads and I wouldn't bother with anything less than $200. Sure, we still see random spikes and pre-war spikes are something I will still take advantage of, but... .....thank you sweet powers of economics for such beautiful market stabilization. I love you. 4 Quote Hello! If you don't like this post please go here: https://politicsandwar.com/forums/index.php?app=core&module=usercp&tab=core&area=ignoredusers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aerys Targaryen Posted November 22, 2015 Share Posted November 22, 2015 Nice video Also, first comment Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Eric Posted November 22, 2015 Share Posted November 22, 2015 (edited) <3 you placentica will come and join you @ Alpha if I ever ditch Praeteritum although you must really love dem trade markets if you dream about inflatory pressure and climbing chart line things Edited November 22, 2015 by Eric Quote Proud Canadian, Proud Ontarian Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hubotz Posted November 22, 2015 Share Posted November 22, 2015 Hubotz here! I stockpiled quite a bit of cash by joining at the beginning of a war and getting to work scalping immediately. Alas, the markets have becomes more fair with the end of the war, and I have turned to loans and bonds as a less labor intensive and more profitable investment for my capital. I agree with some parts of your analysis, but not others. Scalpers are indeed looked upon unfavorably, but it is important to realize that they a major force driving the market to equilibrium. The alternative to scalping is collusion, which freezes the buy/sell spread and forces people looking to sell the resources they actually manufactured or buy the resources they will actually consume to either accept an existing unfavorable offer or wait in a long line behind market profiteers. Scalpers doing their thing drives both ends of the market price towards the middle, which is the natural state of things. Of course, scalpers abandon the market once the spread gets too low to be worth the effort of exploiting, resulting in the 30-70 price gaps we see in most resources at the present. Additionally, even with larger price gaps, I don't think constant undercutting price wars should be a big deal to people who aren't playing the market because: If you need the resources, you deserve to be buying unfavorably, and if you need the cash, you deserve to be selling unfavorably. This is the nature of markets. If I am a scalper, I want as much profit as I can get, so I'll be constantly undercutting for the best prices at the cost of the spending the most time. If I am being raided and need to build a military, I need resources now, so I will accept existing offers for the worst prices, essentially paying extra for getting the resources instantly and effort-free. There is an alternative, however. If you are casually selling or buying resources, and don't want to fight price wars but also don't want the worst prices, just go in the middle. Scalpers wont touch you because undercutting you will burn half their profit, and will either buy you out or wait for someone to take your offer, which more often than not will happen pretty quickly. If everyone started doing this, the market would end up at equilibrium immediately, and scalping would be dead. I don't think complaining about prices is ever justified, really, because you are the one controlling your own offer. If you don't fight the scalpers, you don't deserve the prices they get, because apparently they want those prices more than you do, and thus deserve them. The fact that the price spread exists at all just opens opportunities for better prices than equilibrium offers given enough effort. A fairer market means less profit for the profit-minded and less antiprofit for the desperate, but truthfully, the vast majority of people fit neither category. I believe the notion that with large price spreads one must 'always have to put in Buy offers to get a decent price' is simply wrong, because the decent price, the one you would be getting if the market was fair, is already open game; the scalpers are merely fighting over the best price without detriment to those who wanted the market to be fair. Of course, my entire spiel is losing relevance, since, as a result of people properly buying and selling at "medium" prices or of the frenzied efforts of scalpers, the price spreads have shrunk considerably. My point is merely this: what has changed isn't that it's easier for people to get decent prices, the worst prices have simply become less bad, with the cost of the best prices becoming less good. If the price spreads die, then everyone making offers will form two lines, one for Buy offers and one for Sell offers, $1 apart. Since I doubt anyone cares about the $1 PPU, however, I would expect the lines to just mutually annihilate in general, and I cannot guess what might be the result. But until that happens, stop complaining and either accept that greed takes effort, or give up and just go in the middle. PS: Indeed, $1M is worth far more sentimentally to a small nation than a large one, and has a way larger return on investment too. This is why bonds and loans exist, to redistribute money to those who need it from those who don't. 2 Quote GET LOANS NOW! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim Armstrong Posted November 22, 2015 Share Posted November 22, 2015 Take all my monies and bring me back more monies pls, k? Seriously dude I miss you! 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vosunda Posted November 22, 2015 Share Posted November 22, 2015 That was a great video about debt cycles. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clarke Posted November 22, 2015 Share Posted November 22, 2015 Global Market Manipulation. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Placentica Posted November 25, 2015 Author Share Posted November 25, 2015 (edited) Global Market Manipulation. Sup big boy, way to hold out for less reps. Infra is for losers. Still got a few DEIC embargoes on my nation to help push Alpha to the other side. Edited November 25, 2015 by Placentica Quote Hello! If you don't like this post please go here: https://politicsandwar.com/forums/index.php?app=core&module=usercp&tab=core&area=ignoredusers Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clarke Posted November 25, 2015 Share Posted November 25, 2015 Sup big boy, way to hold out for less reps. Infra is for losers. Still got a few DEIC embargoes on my nation to help push Alpha to the other side. Someones still sore. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Critters Posted November 25, 2015 Share Posted November 25, 2015 Someones still sore. Critters looks at Clarke's DEIC embassy thread on the t$ forums........yeah, I'd say you are right. Someone is still sore..... Quote The Redneck Caliphate of Forrest's Critters Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Clarke Posted November 25, 2015 Share Posted November 25, 2015 Critters looks at Clarke's DEIC embassy thread on the t$ forums........yeah, I'd say you are right. Someone is still sore..... I wouldn't use a thread where you wanted everyone to stop posting as evidence of me being sore rather than you being sore. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Isolatar Posted November 25, 2015 Share Posted November 25, 2015 Who are you and what happened to Steve? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kim Jong-Il Posted November 26, 2015 Share Posted November 26, 2015 I remember the days of being the only one actually putting up decent spreads, to the point where beating me out a dollar put you at a loss They called me a fool I thought of it as piety Quote The many forms of proof regarding Kastor's sexuality: - Kastor: I already came out the closet. - MaIone: I'm gay * MaIone is now known as Kastor - Henri: i'm a !@#$it Skable: the !@#$ is a codo? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Join the conversation
You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.