Patience Pays

What do you consider to be the relative worth of raw lobsters? 200gp? 150gp? 100gp?


Whatever it is, you must constantly assess the likelihood that you are right or wrong. Are you basing your decision off historical prices, or gut feeling? Word on the street?


It's important to not get suckered into the belief that commodities will forever hold their value. That being said, there is good rational behind historical prices, because even though the Grand Exchange is a play stock market with fake money, there is still human psyche involved. To some, this game currency is much more than game currency. 

With the human aspect in mind, you must be eager for patience. Yearn for patience. Know that instant gratification may come from your social status updates or high speed downloads, but it will rarely ever happen in your trading. Trading is a waiting game for winners and a buy-sell-buy-sell-buy-sell game for losers (unless you have extreme luck, in which case, trade as much and as often as you deem fit.)

Everything is Cyclical

Patience pays because everything is cyclical. Cycles are amazing but are also deceiving. A high price of 400gp per raw lobster 6 months ago gives one the impression that raw lobsters are skyrocketing in demand. It's late in the game, but its price just keeps going higher. I can get in for a small profit, right? Wrong. Look at the move at the end of 2014. Crash. Hard crash. A lot of people lost a lot of gold. Why? Why all of a sudden did the price start crashing? Everyone selling, nobody buying? How did such a sudden shift happen, when there had been such a long build to 400gp per raw lobster?


The problem here is the bubble effect. Granted, the effect is not nearly as volatile as a bubble usually is, but you can see the large rise in volume over 2014, the surmounting price, leading to an evaporation of buys in early 2015 and the destruction of the price.

What does a bubble look like?

Here is the typical view. You can see a few points before the March 2015 price where it looks like it tried to break up. These are the "return to normal" points. May 2015 is the despair phase. This is where the smart money is buying back in. The smart money sold their raw lobsters in January and have been eagerly waiting for the dumb money (risk averse individuals who sell when unrealized losses are incurred) to offload their raw lobsters. This doesn't mean 180gp/raw lobster is the lowest we will see, but it is in the range in which the bottom price will be found. My anecdotal guess is 150 +/- 10gp will be the lowest price we see on raw lobsters before the slow trend up again.

Help!! I bought lobsters at 3xx gp per! What should I do?

I'm sorry if you're in this boat. You're down a lot of money and you dont want to keep losing any, but each day looks like things will turn around. Your best strategy is to hold for the long run (barring any type of intervention by Jagex that essentially ruins the supply/demand structure of raw lobsters).

Give it through 2015. You will ache and bemoan the low price, but as I said earlier, everything is cyclical. Raw lobsters should come back. My prediction is that we will see raw lobsters at 250 range in December, and 300 through 2016.

Good luck, all.

Sold most of these lobsters in January. I still had 200k in my inventory. Oh well. 70m turned back into 35m but it's all good. Put in my buy orders. I'll check back at the end of the year. Cheers.

Here are my orders. 100k at 185gp (current going rate) and 300k at 140gp. 200k raw already in the bank and 44m leftover.

Why Merch Clans are scams in Runescape

You've seen the advertisements: make millions in merch clans. Join for free, right away. Buy a bunch of product then sell when they say so. Simple, right? Not so much.

What is a merch clan?

Merch clans are a pyramid scheme of sorts; based on mutual cooperation in investing on a certain item on the Grand Exchange. The problem with this is that you help other people inflate the price of a product through investing your own money, usually after they have already purchased as much as they have planned to. The merch clan leaders will then dump their supply into the high-demand market, selling instantly, and having the price drop heavily. The price of the item eventually drops past your original purchase price, causing you to lose money on every one of the items you bought. You're left with a commodity that you bought in a bubble and now are holding after it burst.

How do I lose money?

With a bloated market on your product, none of it will sell, even at cheaper rates. The effect is an ultimately low-market price for about 6 months. Now, if you are patient, high volume commodities (like fish, ores, logs, etc) will stabalize in prices. You may see that return come back but you will be sitting on the commodity for awhile.

Are all merch clans scams?

No, but at the same time, you have no way of knowing if everyone in the merch clan is acting ethically. Given the average age of a RuneScape player, you are bound to be with a bunch of childish, immature players that will do everything to take home the most gold. Your best bet is to run a merch clan with close friends or people you know in real life, people you can trust.

How can I make money on the grand exchange if merch clans ruin prices?

Easy- watch the market yourself. The "buy low sell high" cliche works- and it works well; when you know what you're doing. Patience and research are the two biggest virtues in banking off the Grand Exchange. Read our section on Investing Pros to find good items to invest in. Remember, nobody wants to miss the boat. If you're not on when the ship is sinking, then you'll be one of the weak hands trying to jump in after the hole has been plugged and the ship has set sail. Be smart with your trading, and study trends. Don't expect riches overnight; the grand exchange moves slow.

Grand Exchange Investing Pros August 2012

WELCOME TO GE INVESTING PROS!!! AUGUST 2012 EDITION

We have been away for the summer- but have returned to provide some investing advice.

First off, let's take a look at fish prices:

Raw Swordfish are at an all-time low for 6 months. The price has steadied out, and will likely rise through the Fall/Winter and hit a good price of 300-400 by next year.

Verdict: Good investment!

Raw lobsters are in the same boat as raw swordfish. Steadied out at a low of 140. It hit this price in about January 2012, then skyrocketed through the spring. It will likely see another rise through the Fall, and is currently a great investment!
Verdict: INVEST!!!

Raw Sharks are a tricky investment. Expensive, but potentially majorly rewarding (double / triple return !) Ive never seen sharks dip below 900 so this is a shocker. Very risky investment

Verdict: Watch, the price may start to rise over the next few months.

Mithril Ores - they are in an in-between for prices right now and can go either way. Either way they go, it is probably not the best time to invest as they will unlikely see any major rise.

Verdict: Stay away!

Addy Ores - An expensive investment, but this looks promising. Addy ores are currently on the fall, but considering their worth, they shouldn't drop much further. They will likely see  a jump back to 1500 or more per ore by October.
Verdict: Wait a week, then Invest!!!

Rune Ores - tired of playing small with cheap investments? Rune ores are not the expensive item to go into. The price has seen barely any fluctuation since February. The prices will likely fall under 10,000 gp / per ore over the year.
Verdict: Do not invest.

 Iron ores - Small time player on the GE? No biggie. Iron ores look like a promising investment right now. The price has seen a noticeable drop since Springtime. Since iron ores are so easy to come by, it is difficult to predict how high it will go, but the price has the potential to rise 50 - 100 within the next few months. 

Verdict: Keep an eye on iron ores. With 100m to spend, you could very likely push the market to raise the price on iron ores, then dump your supply after the price has gone up >25 gp/ore.

That's it for the August 2012 investing advice. Enjoy, and post your results! Happy GE'ing! A friendly reminder from Runescape Collections: Don't let "merch clans" take advantage of you!

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Return from hiatus!

We have been on hiatus for May and June. In the next week I will have researched the G.E. for July Investing Advice. Check back for updates.

Grand Exchange Investing Pros April 2012

APRIL 2012 RUNESCAPE GRAND EXCHANGE INVESTING OPPORTUNITIES

Here is the list of items I discussed back in Feb/March. They were all items on the steady rise of a price skyrocket, leading to an eventual downfall. Coming into April, we will see these prices "bottom out," meaning they will return to a steady price, making overnight grand exchanging an easy sport.

Nature Runes

Our last discussion on them was a bit extreme. Guessing prices would fall to the 100's, they've already hit a low-peak and are back on the rise. Could we expect to see a jump ?

At this point ,it is unclear of the direction nature runes will take. They've gained a bit of notoriety back and gone up in price about 5gp. On the long run, they will probably continue to decrease in value. So I vote... DONT INVEST!

Swordfish

Not going to say I told you so if youre looking at over 100gp a loss per swordfish right now. The market flush of swordfish has already taken its worst hit dropping from over 500 to the 300's. Price will likely continue to slide down but stay in the 300 range. Keep an eye on them. They may make a good investment in April.

Lobsters

Looks like some clan decided to drop early on lobsters. The price dropped nearly 200 in the path 30 days.  but has since been relatively slow in dropping. The price will likely drop and steady out around 175. I would give lobsters another 2 weeks before investing.

Ores

As predicted, iron ores have shot down in value, continuing to drop into the 100's. In about 1 to 2 weeks, it will be at its peak low and bottom out, being a great time to invest. Keep an eye on iron ores.

On the other hand, mithril is hitting its market high, continuing to rise up. DONT INVEST! Just because it is rising now, doesnt mean it will keep rising. Pretty soon, some bundle of clanboys are going to drop their 200k of mithril ores on the market and the price will crash.

Yews

Yews are a tough call right now because the price is jumping and dropping. It is on the slow decline from a price high, so it will likely drop more in price through April. But, you never know, it could skyrocket at the slightest mention of needing them for the next quest. Honestly, I would stick to cheaper merchanting items. 470 a pop makes for a pretty expensive loss, should the stock plummet. A plummet, quite unlikely, is possible, just like a skyrocket in the stock price is possible. Neither, at this period in time, are plausible.

Hope you enjoyed April investing advice! Post a comment below and share your investing thoughts.

Feb 2012 - Have Nature Runes? Hold onto them...

Those who have nature rune investments right now are probably thinking they need to SELL SELL SELL!! The price is dropping and they are going to lose all their money!!!

First of all, calm down and take a deep breath. You're not going  to lose any of it. You're actually going to make money, just not right away.

Nature runes have been on the decline for about a week now after topping at a price of about 213 in Feb 2012.


Natures will go back up. But it will take awhile. The price will plummet to about 100. Hopefully not lower. If it goes lower than 100 (like down to 50 or lower) it will be hard to predict nature runes ever getting out of the dump (if theyre selling at 50 a piece, there are a shit ton on the market!)

Natures will likely see a rise in 1-3 months from now. So if youre out looking in at an investment, Wait at least 2 weeks until prices start fluctuating at the new low price.

Eventually, some jerkoff merch clan will want to come back to nature runes. They are the easiest to make money off of as they pay high prices to keep driving the price up.