Main Strategy of the Commodities Player, Part I

I would say that there's three main ways to make a profit off the auction house:

1. "Passive" - low risk / very low volume / low yield - this is a tactic that most people employ automatically. You see an amazing deal on the AH, even if it's something you don't need, and immediately scoop it up and re-post it. It's low risk because you know you are going to make a significant amount of gold from it, but it's also low yield, because deals like that are few and far between.

2. "Market Manipulation" - high risk / high volume / high yield - this is what most people think of when talking about 'playing' the AH. It involves doing things like buying up an entire commodity so that you can repost them at a much higher price and inciting other artificial market manipulations. This strategy can potentially yield a lot of gold quickly, but it's also high risk, especially on a very populated server, because the amount of new product entering the market every hour may hot be something that you can keep buying up indefinitely. It's very easy for this entire strategy to implode and cause great losses.

3. "Commodities" - relatively low risk / variable volume / high long term yield - this is the strategy I employ. It involves watching your particular AH to select the commodities that have consistent high/low prices over the week, and are very volatile within those price points. In future posts, I'm going explain my strategy for selecting commodities, as well as the buy, sell, and hold rules for those commodities. If you do this right, you can make a lot of money without investing much time, but it's also a long term investment that requires you to tie up a lot of gold in commodities that you may hold on to for days or even weeks in special cases. Also, like any kind of investment, the amount of money you can make is directly proportional to your initial investment. If you are starting small, it make take a while to make a lot of gold.

Post 3.2 Market Trends

I raked in around 10k on patch day. Most of it was from the 20 stacks of Titanium Ore that I started stockpiling a month ago... I ended up selling around 5 stacks for 100% markup, and prospecting the rest and selling the gems/powder.

This was the first patch day that I have been aggressively playing the AH, and my general observation was that the prices on everything skyrocket for the first 12-18 hours. I assume this is because everyone wants to enchant and socket their new gear, and because more people are online than usual. I sold some mats I had stockpiled for around a 30% markup, which is much higher than my usual average.

Here's some specific 3.2 observations about market shifts that seem to be sticking for longer than 24 hours:

1. Abyss Crystals (which pre-3.2 ran for 90-100g, have fallen to around 70-80g. This could either be due to a market influx of Abyss Crystals from people buying new gear with Champion's Seals or Emblems of Conquest and DEing their old gear, or possibly from a dramatic increase in people running heroics and DEing the gear they find there. If the latter is true, it should also affect the price of Dream Shards, but so far the Dream Shard price has held steady at 15-17g. So, I believe that the drop in Abyss Crystal prices is a small adjustment caused by an increase in DE's at the beginning of the patch, and I expect them to return to their normal prices by early next week.

2. Titanium Ore has doubled in price from 10g to 20g each. This is obviously due to the new Prospecting materials (Epic Gems and Titanium Ore) that were introduced with the patch, and is how I made most of my gold over the past day. I expect this price increase to maybe adjust slightly lower than it is now (to possibly 17-18g) in about a week, but overall, I don't think this is a temporary market adjustment. Another effect of the increase in Titanium Ore prices is that Titansteel Bar prices have shot up from 100g to 130g.

Introduction

I play on the Proudmoore server and 'play' the AH with a level 1 banker. I typically log onto the banker 3-4 times a day in 5-10 minute sessions and buy, sell, and hold specific items. I average a 400-600g profit per day. If you average that all out, it's about 17g per minute or 1000g an hour, which I believe is a faster profit than doing dalies or farming for ore/herbs.

I'm going to write down my notes about how the market is working on my server, my general strategy for 'playing' the AH, the things I am buying and selling, at what prices, and why.