When I say "Blocking Order" I mean large volume (typically for 100 units) full regional range buy orders that don't seem to be intended to actually buy any PLEX but rather are there simply to prop the price up and ensure it doesn't drop below a certain value.
There were multiple such orders I've been keeping an eye on for close to a year now. They were always there, everyone else overcut those orders which meant the price of PLEX was always higher than in those orders. Very occasionally they'd bump the price up another notch or two, continually forcing the market higher and higher.
Then after CCP Falcon's announcement on 24 Nov 2014 that as of 01 Jan 2015 input multiplying and broadcasting will become bannable offences (IOW, byebye ISBoxers) the price of PLEX started dropping fast and practically every singe one of those large blocking orders disappeared (most of them before the price dropped to the level they were at).
On the 25th the closest thing left to a blocking order was a station range only buy order for 50 at 770 mil each which was more than 100 million less than the blocking orders had been at the day before and for only half the volume.
Then today (the very next day Nov 26th) I found this.
A new full regional buy order for 100 units has appeared at 850 million per unit. It seems someone has decided to try to keep prices over 850 mil. That's pretty much where prices were a month ago before a recent push to raise them to 1 billion.
Chances are pretty good it'll work too. At least for now. The real effect the new policy is going have on the demand for PLEX won't be known until after Jan 1st when the policy actually comes into effect. Any effect the news about it is having on prices right now is purely based on speculation. After some initial panic and knee jerk reactions from speculators, hoarders and price manipulators things are likely to settle down again...
Until the 1st of Jan anyhow, when the real (and lasting) effects of all this will finally be seen.
This is going to affect the entire economy, not just PLEX prices. Ore and mineral prices are already rising in response to the expectation that all those ISBoxed mining fleets are going to be out of business on Jan 1st. Heck I'm even tempted to buy ore now and I never play the bulk materials markets.
"Heck I'm even tempted to buy ore now and I never play the bulk materials markets."
ReplyDeleteyou mean minerals... pish your such a market noob lol.
hehe, well I don't pay much attention to those markets to say whether ore or minerals are the better way to sell but I do know the null guys were complaining there was no compressed ore not too long ago.
ReplyDeletenobody deals in the ore markets, its far to bulky. Most of the ppl who do mine usually can refine it near perfectly and the others just dont care. Making minerals the only worthwhile market endeavor.
ReplyDeleteThis change was worth it even just for the interesting impact on the market, the likes of which we haven't seen in quite a while.
ReplyDelete...well, you know you are strange in the EVE community when you some times want things nerfed or buffed just so you can see what it will do to the market!...
I can't argue with that sentiment... In fact I agree with it.
DeleteIf PLEX would drop, that would be accompanied with inflation, people playing with PLEX need more PLEX to keep up current habits in ISK. RL money deposits need to go up, but short term I would think that ISK would simple be more expensive. In one of the markets I monitor that lives very close the CPI some traders are already heavily speculating, seems short term due to uncertainty, my stocks are depleting rapidly, very nice though ;)...
ReplyDeleteRight now it's all speculation. We won't see the real effects until after the new policy goes into effect on Jan 1st.
DeleteI'm expecting inflation, starting with ore and minerals due to all the ISBoxed mining/incursion/bomber/etc. fleets the changes are going to put out of business. And of course if the price of minerals goes up that will affect the price of just about everything else.
PLEX prices it's hard to say for sure what will happen in the long run. Sure a lot of ISBoxers are going to be buying fewer PLEX, but that's likely to be at least partially offset by others who decide it's worth running 2-3 accounts now that they don't have to compete with 20/40/80 ship ISBoxed fleets.
More than anything else I'm expecting chaos in the markets which is good news to me. Chaos means there are going to be plenty opportunities to make lots of ISK with plenty of players trying to predict what will happen and make a killing off it.
Some of that is starting already (see ore and mineral prices) but it won't hit full force until after Jan 1st and It'll probably take at least a month before things start settling down again.
I believe the effects of this will be comparable to the effect mass bot banwaves had in WoW... The rare type of banwave that happened about once every year or two and got virtually all of the bots. Those had a huge effect, prices on just about everything shot up almost immediately and many players got very rich in the months immediately after such a banwave.
DeleteI think those buy orders are gone now as PLEX prices in Jita have dropped to around the 830 million mark at the time of writing.
ReplyDeleteVery interesting... As of right now the lowest sell order price on Jita is 826.7 mil but there's only 3 that are more than 0.01 ISK under 830 mil. The closest thing I see to a blocking order is a 2 jump order for 100 at 810 mil and a 1 jump order for 50 at 816 mil.
DeleteWhen and if those two disappear things could get fun. If no other largish volume orders appear, it wouldn't take long to drop under 800 mil. From there if panic sets in and momentum builds we might see a big crash.
I think I'll welcome the crash, only because I can sub my accounts cheaper. I'm not a player in the PLEX market. In terms of eve markets, that one is very very volatile. At least from what I've seen over the last few weeks especially. I like it though!
Deletethe new stop 100 order is at 810 right now.
ReplyDeleteAnd now that order is gone too. There are no large blocking orders up at all now. There is one order for 50 at 770 mil each but that's just a station order. There are still quite a few small orders up over 800, even more at 750 to 800 but not enough to keep the price up for much longer.
DeleteIt's starting to look like the big crash might be coming real soon now. Until the super rich multi trillionaires decide the price is low enough to step in and start putting significant portions their fortunes into PLEX.
From what I've been hearing:
ReplyDeleteQuite a few people who were holding large amount of PLEX (more than a couple hundred) have been dumping them on the market and taking their profits from past investment. Anyone who puts up a high-priced blocking order, esp. above 750M, is likely to see it filled rapidly. There are a lot of people who were sitting on massive piles of PLEX purchased around 500M-550M.
The general sentiment is that demand is going to fall after Jan 1 due to the announced changes to multiboxing, and CCP's typical holiday sales pricing, which typically runs on-off-on-off-on-off from US Thanksgiving holiday and through the New Year, will depress prices further. Several speculators expect prices to drop below 650M, a few think maybe even back down to 500M, depending on people spending their holiday RL cash gifts on PLEX.
Many of the PLEX investors are apparently planning to buy back PLEX next year, after they see where things settle after Jan 1. So, predict that prices will be allowed to free-fall for the next month or so and market manipulation to resume again in mid-to-late January.
Seems like a good time to multi-train chars then ;)
DeleteI agree with everything larry said.
DeleteAs for multi-training, just yesterday I put a couple characters back on multi-train and burned another dozen or so PLEX on account subscriptions. IMO that's the best use for the PLEX I bought recently that I can't flip quickly without taking a loss.
If the price drops far enough I'll probably drop 50-60 billion on PLEX and subscribe all my accounts for 6 months to a year ahead.
From what I've read the price of plex won't be dropping as much once January rolls by. Most people looking to sub in January will be buying their plex in advance, not on January 1st, so the loss of sales hits December. The dual boxing community seems relatively unphased by it too. I imagine most of this drop is speculation, and it will recover pretty quick. I doubt we'll see 650m plex.
DeleteI also agree with larryb. I dont honestly think it'll get too crazy and drop past 650mil, but I see it dropping even more than now. We are witnessing it today and it'll continue for a few weeks I think. It'll be fun to watch actually. I like this stuff!
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