Investing in Items by noremac9 |  |
NEOPIAN BANK - There are lots of great ways to make NP. Playing games, stocking
your shop, restocking, among numerous other things. But then there's a way to
make NP that requires little work, a small amount of time, and has a large pay
off-- if done right. It's known as investing in items, and although it has moderate
risks, it's well worth it if you know how to pick your investments. Unsurprisingly,
that's what this article is about.
Before we get started, keep in mind one thing. To invest, you need cold hard
cash. It's recommended that you have a MINIMUM of 200,000 NP to invest. That's
the low end of the market, it's more likely that you'll need somewhere from
300,000 upward (some of the really rare stuff can be in the several million
range). Ideally, this should NOT be your life saving. Sometimes investments
don't pay off, and you lose money (if you do it right, this shouldn't happen).
Anyway, the point is that you should have about that much NP to throw around,
and it shouldn't be your life saving.
There are a lot of different criteria to keep in mind when investing in items.
By taking into account all the below criteria, you should rarely, if ever, lose
money in an investment. We'll be looking at value, demand, and supply.
Value
This is an extremely important thing to take into account, especially with
weapons. It's the reason the Jade Scorchstone has multiplied in price five times
over, and the Tiki Bomb Bag is nearly half as much as it was before it was retired.
The Jade Scorchstone is considered one of the most important items for a good
battler to have, and is therefore highly valued. The Tiki Bomb Bag, on the other
hand, is not a particularly great weapon, and therefore sells for less than
it did originally in the Hidden Tower. The value of a weapon is determined by
how well it works, and how affordable it is to the buyer (there's a ratio between
price/power that can't really be defined. In time, you'll see what I mean).
No matter how much cash someone has, they're not going to buy it unless there's
a good value to what they're paying for. One quick note: generally, if you're
not a battler, try to stay away from investing in weapons (you need to know
a bit about the 'dome to make good judgements).
With other items, take a paint brush for instance, value is also taken into
account. Each paint brush has its own value, determined by how good people think
it looks, how prestigious it is, and how many pets can be painted with it. The
baby Paint brush has the most "value," because people think it's cute. However,
it would have no where near the value if there weren't so many people who like
cute pets. Not only that, but the baby paint brush has an ENORMOUS array of
pets that can be painted with it. Plus, it's very rare, so it's prestigious
as well. It's easy to see why the baby paint brush is one of the most popular
brushes. By using the three above criteria for a paint brush, you can see which
paint brushes are good investments.
Demand
Once again, an extremely important factor to think about. Also, it relates
to what was said under "Value." The demand of an item, for those of you who
are completely lost, is how many people want it. If a lot of people want it,
that's high demand, and vice versa. For an example of high demand, look at the
Hypno Helmet. It's an extremely good Battledome item, and a reliable one at
that. Every good battler, and not-so-good battler, wants one (whether they're
actively saving for it or not). The price has been rising since long before
I started playing, and it’s rising slowly still. That's because there's a high
demand for it. Here's another example.
If a war is coming up, it's obvious to see that codestones will be increasing
in demand. Therefore, buying codestones is a risk free investment, because you
KNOW the war is coming, and thus demand is rising. Of course, this is the MOST
obvious demand increase, but it makes for a good example. Also, with weapons,
(just so you know, one of the biggest investments is weapons. Between the hidden
tower, and all the different battle shops, it's pretty safe to say that 70%
of investments are weapons) the value is a huge part of demand. A valuable weapon
will have a high demand, and a non-valuable weapon will not. The demand with
weapons is almost always determined by the value, which is why these two sections
may seem redundant.
Supply
Supply should greatly affect your choice in investment. When investing, 99%
of the time you're waiting for the item to be retired. After all, the supply
has to be cut off before someone's going to pay more than you did for the exact
same thing. That's why you're almost always waiting for an item to be retired;
or, sometimes, you might buy an item after it's retired, as long as you think
it will continue to rise. Supply is also closely tied in with demand. When a
war starts, demand for codestones increases. However, since every time they're
used the supply goes down, people pay more and more for the ever thinning supply.
The main thing you're looking for are soon-to-be-retired items that have a high
demand. It's best to buy something sooner, rather than later, because as long
as you know it will go up EVENTUALLY, and are willing to wait, it'll be fine.
With luck, using the above criteria will prevent losing money in an investment.
Also, patience is probably the single most important trait for any investor
to have, because you'll be waiting a LONG time for a payoff sometimes. The longest
I ever had to wait was about six months, but that was because I had a wee bit
of trouble selling it. If you're holding on to an item and it's not rising,
yet you're pretty sure it will, hold onto it. Easier said than done sometimes,
but important to follow, no matter how hard. Of course, this isn't to be confused
with sitting on an item forever, which can result in a loss of profit. As long
as the item is worth significantly more than you bought it for, sell away, all
you have to lose is POTENTIAL money. If an item going down (perhaps a bad investment)
and you're sure it won't be coming back up, go ahead and sell. But generally,
try to hang on till the item has gone up in value.
Some of you would probably like some real world (so to speak) examples of
good investments. Here are three you've already missed.
Jade Scorchstone
This weapon meets all three criteria. As was said before, its value is extremely
high. Healing fully each battle cannot be beaten by ANY other healing item,
and it was only one million NP, a pretty good value for something like that.
Then there's demand, of which there is a huge amount. If the value is good,
then the demand is usually high. Also, the supply was fairly low, because most
people that bought it kept it. Although there were an infinite supply in the
hidden tower, most people willing to spend a million on it had a pretty good
reason. Now it goes for 4.5 million upward, and doesn't show any signs of decreasing
in price. That's a 4X your money payoff, a very good investment.
Chia Flour
This is a good example of an item that doesn't fit all the criteria, but was
still a good investment. Its value is debatable, since it's unclear how many
people actually want to turn pets into yellow Chias, but if they choose to,
it's gone forever. When an item is gone every time it's used, well, that item
is going to go up in price over time. Or so you'd think. The odd thing is, it
doesn't always work that way. Like I said earlier, this item's value is debatable.
Then there's demand. The fact of the matter is that the demand for this item
was somewhat large at first, but then died down over time. As for supply, since
it goes away when you use it, it fairs pretty well in that category. Still,
it really doesn't measure up to the criteria, and in a normal case, probably
wouldn't be that good of an investment. However, there is one thing that makes
this investment special. If you paid attention to the Eraser of the Dark Faerie,
a very similar weapon, you probably could've guessed it was going to be retired
right away. The Eraser was retired after ONE DAY, and since the two weapons
were so similar, it could be guessed Chia Flour would do the same. It wasn't
retired THAT quickly, but much faster than other weapons in the hidden tower.
It's a good example of using logic to invest, even if it wouldn't normally be
a good investment.
One Dubloon Coins
This is a good example of a quantity investment. Although each INDIVIDUAL
item is fairly worthless (the profit is, anyway), in mass quantities there are
there is money to be made. Two Dubloon Coins were given out at the last advent
calendar, which caused the price to drop significantly. However, once again,
let's look at the criteria. The value of a Two Dubloon Coin is large, since
it's a one-size-fits-all codestone for weaker pets (the majority of the population).
Since it's a one-size-fits all item, a lot of people can use it, which definitely
helps the demand out. The supply skyrocketed at the advent calendar, however,
since they go away for ever once used, that didn't last long. Also, since there
is no current way to get Dubloons (accept Coltzan, but that doesn't happen much),
the price could only go up. Two Dubloon coins were a good investment, if you
could get enough of them. It really helps to have a shop that can hold about
100+ items for quantity investments.
Well, that wraps it up for investing. Hopefully, you'll be making a considerable
profit fairly soon. If not, here's a little disclaimer.
If you lost your life savings-- oops. Sorry, I do not take responsibility for
that.
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