Friday, March 18, 2011

Cleaning the Bank

One of my first posts in PVSAH dealt largely with throwing a wet blanket over the long-term investment craze in Wrath commodities like Saronite Ore and Abyss Crystals and such. As I went to collect my proceeds from selling stacks of Cobalt Bars for 300g today, it occurred to me that I should perhaps revisit the advice.

(12.1g per Saronite bar, 3.66g per two ore)

(13g per Cobalt Bar, ~1.1g per ore)

First, just to get it out of the way: go check your bank. I did not mean to stockpile 15 stacks of Cobalt Bars to sell later, it just sort of happened that way on my rarely used Blacksmith alt. Every stick of non-BoP debris in your bank has a constantly fluctuating gold value attached to it, and it certainly can pay to reevaluate how important it is for you to have, say, 2000 Deviate Fish (selling at 13g each on Auch) taking up space. Ironically, I was cleaning the bank out to make room for all the Pyrite Ore I have been accumulating for less than 70g a stack.

Secondly... I do not really feel I made the wrong call here. Time Horizons are an important concept when it comes to investment, and I guarantee that there were people playing three months ago that are not playing today. But let's ignore that for a moment and assume you had stockpiled a full guild bank page (98 stacks) of Saronite back then for 11g/stack. Your 1,078g three months ago is now worth... 3,586.8g. Assuming, of course, you can actually release 98 stacks of Saronite Ore into the economic ecosystem without depressing the price.

The real big news here is 4x-10x return I can apparently nab for simply smelting ore. Your 98 stacks of Saronite Ore looks a lot more impressive on paper when it is suddenly at 11,858g in bar-form. But, again, nearly 50 stacks of Saronite Bars? Not likely to all go for 242g a stack.

In any case, I highly suggest going out there and doing what might otherwise seem like a no-brainer, e.g. making sure you aren't sitting on a pile of gold.

2 comments:

  1. Agree. Many items that were going for peanuts at the end of Wrath, as people were probably clearing out their banks, are now "sold out" or have finally appreciated in value.

    Abyss Crystals were routinely available under 10g through February, and I just sold a stack for 1000g. Infinite dust is up to 100g/stack. Titansteel bars are selling for 100g each.

    So yeah, check out your vaults!

    At some point, even Relics of Ulduar will be worth something. I hope so, since I've got 1/3 of a guild tab worth of stacks...

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  2. So we can guess that supply was high at the end of LK and now supply is low, increasing prices?

    Wish I could see the Supply/Demand curve for that.

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