Tradelands Economic Update – September 2nd, 2024
September saw $863.7 Million in transactions for the month. The most important outcome was a stabilization in demand. This is reassuring, as the economy has seen a lot of turmoil following the relatively quiet summer of releases. Moreover, the month saw us return to some of our traditional pricing trends, as the release of exclusive woods and a new cannon converter offered price corrections on two markets that have seen unusual trends.
Exclusive Woods Return
On August 17th, exclusive woods returned to the Premium Merchant. Among them was Blood Oak, which has been absent from several of the past exclusive wood events. This caused a spike in Blood Oak transactions on the market, which caused the JSI Index to slip back below $20k and also caused a general downward slide in overall prices.
Blood Oak saw a downward trend of -6.80% for the month, following its re-release. This is expected, as the amount of volume on the market increases, thus removing the limited number of buyers from the market. Now that it is back off-sale again, and because we expect it to remain so for some time to come, the expectation for September is to see a stabilization at a new price point and a gradual increase over time. The wood is still highly desirable in ship building due to its unique hue and contrast, making it work well with other woods.
Cladifier Market Shift
Blank Cladifiers have seen a shift in their value in the past two months. The general rule of thumb is to sell Cladifiers at $1M per. However, the price point for these have gone to $1.2M in August, a sign of inflationary pricing due to the perception of additional doubloons in the market. The lack of an auction this summer seems indicative of this change, but we also note that there is a shift to providing pre-cladded cladifiers (called Premium Material Cladifiers on the Price Guide) that limits the use of a blank cladifier. Notably, this year saw the release of Brass Cladifiers, meaning you are overpaying if you are using the Brass material to make one.
Mystery Crate Stabilization Point
After much debate earlier in the year about the stabilization point for the new Mystery Crates, it looks like the Buy and Sell value have reached their stable points. Mystery Crates are trending to around $40k per crate, and buyer demand fluctuating between $30k and $35k depending on demand. We did notice that when the exclusive woods went on sale, there was a spike in interest in the crates, likely from players who wanted to obtain a ship blueprint while the materials were on sale.
However, this remains a difficult market. Stockpiling crates for later use doesn’t seem to generate a huge amount of demand, except from a handful of players who will buy them in bulk in order to stock up supplies for a ship. Some players will also use them for decorative purposes as well.
Wyvern Blueprint Skyrockets
In our recent review of the Siege of Clydesdale, we make an off-hand remark at the end about the increase in value for the Wyvern Blueprint. We would be remiss if we didn’t talk about this in more detail. While the performance in the roleplays likely played a part, the other half of this increase in value is due to the overall lackluster value of alternative items in the 9th Anniversary Crates. In other words, players are inflating the value of most valuable item from that crate to offset the lower prices they are getting from the other items, notable Brass.
The main issue with this blueprint is the high buyer demand earlier in the month. This leads to a case where players who are willing to sell a blueprint are able to do so at a higher price, because there is greater demand for it. However, noted that the buyer demand dropped from 82% to just 16% after these sellers started inflating their prices, nearly double their estimated worth in July. This drop in interest is likely due to the increase in the overall price point as well as the sellers filling orders of buyers and thus removing them from the market.
We will continue to watch this index to see if it moves back down to the $700k price point we see from other blueprints or if it is able to retain it’s higher value. If it does remain above $1.2M as it seems to be doing right now, then we can attribute the success of this to the performance of the ship as well as the theory that players are purchasing the 9th Anniversary Crates specifically in the hopes of getting this one item.
