The last month or so I've been seeing indications a price correction was beginning.
I've had a number of "guard" buy orders set up somewhat lower than the going price in various regions for some time. When those orders started getting filled (around a month ago) I knew something was up and started paying closer attention to the PLEX market. For more than a month I've been getting some pretty good deals on PLEX purchases and it seems to be picking up steam lately.
Lately the frequency with which my buy orders get filled seems to be increasing.
During the same time period the price of PLEX on Jita started going down on almost a daily basis, refusing to go back over 800 million and mostly staying in the 770-780 range. There was a brief rally where the price went back to slightly over 800 million (probably a failed attempt at price manipulation) but it didn't stay there for very long at all and was quickly right back down around 770 mil.
I believe we are now on the verge of a PLEX price crash. The big questions are will it actually crash and if so how hard will the crash be?
Then there's the question of a
I've long suspected someone was continually manipulating PLEX prices upwards and Somerblink was an obvious suspect. They had plenty of reasons to drive the price of PLEX up and keep it up. At any rate someone certainly was putting up quite large buy orders (100 on Jita, 50-100 on the other main hubs and 20-50 on most large secondary hubs) that didn't seem to be there to actually buy PLEX but rather to get overcut and continually push buy order prices higher.
Someone with very deep pockets (deep enough to make me look like a pauper) seems to have been manipulating PLEX prices for a very long time. Is it just a coincidence PLEX prices started dropping and those large buy orders began slowly disappearing right after Somer got shut down?
I think not. I believe Somer had been manipulating PLEX prices upwards all along. Without them around continually pushing the price up anymore, it's probably going to crash now.
This is exactly what people said last time Somer was shut down and it didn't happen then. CCP ran a PLEX sale, which always tend to cause temporary price dips. There had been another one not too long ago, too.
ReplyDeleteDon't get me wrong I think PLEX are a bubble and I'd love to see them crash (and would frolic for fun and profit in the resulting market chaos), but I don't think Somer is the cause here.
Except this time it isn't just one of Somer's schemes being shut down, it's Somerblink itself that's been shut down.
DeleteCan't argue with the second part though, I view price crashes and market chaos as wonderful opportunities to make huge profits.
Sure, all those degenerate gamblers buying plex to fuel their habit won't anymore. Until copycats pop up. Copycats already existed and I'm dead certain more are in the works.
DeleteNo doubt there are. If that weren't the case I wouldn't just be saying PLEX *might crash, I'd be calling it a sure thing.
Deletefor sure, Somer was presumably a large buyer. With with them out of the picture therefore a large buyer has gone and so presumably we are due a period of price weakness.
ReplyDeleteHowever, the people buying Plex from Somer (assuming my logic is correct) will still want to buy Plex and so will have to buy from CCP or other resellers.
What we may be seeing is the absence of a buyer who stocked up on Plex - and so presumably the Eve Central Bank is now sitting on a load of Plex to sell into the market to control prices down.
Let me ask you a question;
ReplyDeleteWithin your large trade portfolio, do you see any product groups that follow suit with PLEX prices and do you speculate on this validity?
for me, no. Which tilts me towards thinking those that buy Plex need less Plex as rising prices generate more ISK per Plex.
Delete@Jasper
DeleteNo I don't and that's something I look for. I mostly deal with fairly expensive non bulky items though. It could be there are some cheap or bulky items that do follow suit.
Other than PLEX, prices for most things seem to go in cycles of varying frequencies. Some cycle weekly or even faster, others might take months to go through a cycle.
History graphs tend to look like sine or sawtooth waves.
When the price is low supply dries up causing prices to rise again. When prices are high, supply grows greater than demand, the market gets flooded and prices go down.
PLEX don't seem to follow that general pattern... Or at least not so far, but if they continue going down further now, then maybe they are on a similar cycle, just a very long one.
@Croda
there might be something to that. On the other hand the higher the ISK price of PLEX goes the more players will be tempted to buy PLEX to sell for ISK. At least until PLEX get to be so expensive players paying ISK for PLEX start cutting back on how many they buy.
I have a much simpler explanation to the PLEX price crash: Hyperion release. All releases have the tendency of increasing casual player numbers. These players are "creating" the PLEX, while hardcore are consuming it.
ReplyDeleteI have always believed that the price of Plex would never "crash" because Eve lacks one of the features of a real life banking system: a genuine system of margin buying. Unlike in the real world speculators aren't leveraged 50x-100x. So therefore there is no panic selling to cover margin.
ReplyDeleteOf course I could be wrong and if so please someone with a little more knowledge explain it to me
Actually there is panic selling in Eve and I take advantage of that quite often. Push prices down, buy up a bunch of panic sales then sell it at normal prices a week later.
DeleteThe PLEX market with all those big blocking orders has so far proven very resistant to that. However if the blocking orders (those big buy orders mentioned in the OP) ever run out then things could get very interesting (and potentially very profitable).