Over on r/eve somebody (hi Johnny) asked the question "What do you think is going to happen with mineral prices because of the drone alloy nerf?"
Discussing the issue caused me to look at some market graphs, and I noticed something in the short term which is giving me the screaming heebie-jeebies.
Here's a timeline:
March 3-ish: Drone alloy removal announced. Massive mineral price spike, entirely from speculation. See: Zydrine price history.
April 4-ish: Prices of commodities built with minerals catches up to current market mineral prices. See: Raven price history.
April 8-ish: Market volume for commodities built with minerals drops sharply. See: Raven price history.
April 20-ish: Market volume for minerals drops sharply. Mineral price drops sharply. See: Pyerite volume history, isogen price history.
My crystal ball is extremely murky, but it looks to me like mineral prices hit a point where demand for mineral-built commodities dropped in a significant way. People stopped buying ships, so builders stopped buying minerals, so now mineral prices are dropping.
I don't feel like speculating about the long term, and I really hope that the drop in demand is a temporary thing while people adjust to higher prices, but right now my "mineral prices going down will really suck for me" sense is gibbering about a possibly-significant crash happening right now. That sense is a little overactive, but I don't like to ignore it so precautions of an undisclosed nature are being taken.
Fun, semi-related fact: I personally account for one-ninth of one percent of mineral volume moved in the forge market.
demand for mineral-built commodities dropped in a significant way
ReplyDeleteI don't think so. Remember this is just before people stocked up for Burn Jita and Hulkaggeddon. I think the price shifts are almost entirely speculation. The real price for a Raven (based on the work to mine mats for one and build it) would probably be somewhere between the peaks and the throughs but what's driving the changes is pure gambling.
"Market volume for commodities built with minerals drops sharply"... This is normal market behavior. It's what happens right before a price decrease. The prices can't just keep going up forever; the buyers (of ships, ammo, etc.) only have so much money that they're willing to spend on such stuff right now. I expect mineral prices to rise and fall a couple more times before a new stable level is reached.
ReplyDelete