LindeX at 262 - why?

Have there been any plans to float the $L currency again?

It looks like the "Supply Linden" mechanism isn't selling enough to trim the $L to 264/265... or is perhaps not selling at all?

Anyone else wonder what is going on?

The stability (that's existed for the 6 or 7 months that I've been here and have been paying attention, at least) has been a notable feature. Notable, and positive, I would think: it encourages people to make Plans, and therefore to invest outside funds into the platform.

Possibly they've taken advice that leads them to think that a lower rate would be ultimately beneficial to the platform.

But surely they're not abandoning the exchange rate to wild fluctuations. I can't imagine how that could benefit LL in the long run.

Linden Lab isn't going to post details of their economic policy, so we're forced to speculate. The following is pure speculation.

Supply Linden uses a metric to determine how many Linden Dollars to sell on the Lindex. A large part of that metric is the number of active, payment info on file accounts. The more people who are in-world, spending money, the more need there is to pump money into the system to keep everything flowing smoothly.

With the recent stagnation in user activity, Supply Linden has been unable to sell Linden Dollars. This causes the value of the Linden Dollar to rise.

This is exactly what you would expect to see in a classic depression. In a depression there are fewer and fewer dollars available to buy goods, and so the price of goods in general fall. In the contracting Second Life economy, there are fewer people willing to buy goods, and so prices drop. A t-shirt maker who used to sell shirts for $10 is happy to drop his price to $9 when the exchange rate compensates him in real-dollar terms. Thus everything remains in balance.

Buying L seems little higher then a week ago it was 38.20 for 10,000L$ now
it is 38.33

I noticed this and almost posted it myself. I am not going to complain, but I am curious about it. It's not a steep change, but all change is worth examining.

You may recall I posted a panicky message about a month ago because I thought the exchange rate was going the other way. At that time the main thing that concerned me was that the size on the sell side had reached L$100 million. Since then the size on the sell side stayed at almost exactly 100 million pretty much constantly. Leading me to believe that someone (presumably Supply Linden) was deliberately keeping it there.

That obviously stopped quite suddenly over the weekend. I have this picture of some guy whose job is to wake up every morning and sell L$ up to whatever amount keeps it at L$100 million. Then, in my picture, once a month or something the guy takes a day off work or calls in sick and nothing gets sold and the exchange rate blips down like it just did.

Personally I suspect LL buffers it a lot, it's hard to believe when horrendous economic announcements are made the exchange rate is hardley affected.

Would the strengthening US dollar have anything to do with it?

If someone spends thrity quid a month they'll now be getting less Linden dollars than they were a couple of months ago.

There's no need to suspect it. It's a well advertised policy of LL. Although there's something a little suspicious going on as described here: https://jira.secondlife.com/browse/WEB-878

I only look at the sell side (the price of buying L$), but the same thing happened a few months ago. Then, the normal was 275L/$1. I used to wait until there were some buy orders at 274L before selling. That changed suddenly, so that 274/$1 was the norm and, until yesterday, I waited to sell until there were some at 273L, which usually occured sometime during each day.

Yesterday, the same thing started to happen - the bulk at 274 was reducing a lot while the amount at 273 rocketed (most of the time there isn't any), so I thought the same thing might be happening again, and I didn't cash anything out yesterday because of it. It does appears to be happening again, so now now I'll wait for some 272/$1 before I cash anything out. There were a couple of times when there was some at that rate yesterday.

I don't pretend to understand anything about it, except that I've been better off since the last time because of it, and it looks like I'm going to be be better off again for some time.

If you are converting US$ into L$ then this move is worse for you. You get more L$ per US$ if the exchange rate is 275 instead of 274 and it's even worse at 273.

If you are converting L$ into US$ you know you can get a lot more money if you go into advanced mode and sell your L$ for 263 or 264 or whatever the other side of the market is. It might take a day or two to get your money out but if you're not in a rush you'll make a little extra. If you put your money up right now at 264 it will be traded within about 10 minutes.

I only sell L$ so I'm better off. I know I can get better rates if I wait, but so far I've prefered the immediacy of selling at the price that's listed, but only when the price drops a little - usually a few times each day.

Ok, I've done it as an experiment.

Update:
You weren't wrong. The sale was done in about 10 minutes, and I'm better off for it.

Someone else suggested it to me a while back, but I prefered the immediacy of the way I do it. I might change how I do it now - it's worth it.

If you're interested in getting the money fast then the trick is to just go one off from whatever the current best sale is.

I've even found that selling at the current top rate gets me a better deal and that's done in less than ten minutes.

L$10,000 at market rate = $35.36
L$10,000 at 264 = $36.54

Right now, it's 264 at the top of the Sell Orders list. Do you mean offering at 265? (I'm totally dumb in these matters)

Yes, although in this special case the amount at 264 - L$104,804 is so tiny it can be ignored and you could still put your trade up at 264 instead of 265.

In view of all this, I'll change my ways. The difference is significant. I'd been put off from trying it by people posting that they've had L$ up for sale for ages and they still hadn't sold, and I was happy with my exchanges being immediate. But if it doesn't take long, I'll do it that way now. Days are ok, but I wouldn't want to wait weeks and more.

Good thread, Desmond

It doesn't cost you anything to cancel a sell order anyway. Just keep an eye on it. Generally if I'm selling and want the money in a couple of days I go for the rate just above the low rate. So that would have been 263 this week.

Looking at the figures now it looks like 261 is attainable but I'd expect an influx of money shortly at the higher rate to stop that happening.

You can cancel an order? That's something I haven't picked up before. I'd imagined that those who had orders that weren't being filled for ages were stuck without their money. It gets better.

Thank you all for the information. If I'd listened to Kitty a while ago, I would have been doing it this way for a while now.

P.S. Welcome back from the OS thread, Ciaran. Is this just a visit?

Lol I'm trying to stay away from there but it's way too addictive!

The best way to do it is to constantly have L$ up for sale rather than just sat doing nothing in world. So this is the status right now.

Exchange Rate - Total Remaining Quantity
L$263 / US$1.00 - L$1,148,017
L$262 / US$1.00 - L$14,789,113
L$261 / US$1.00 - L$4,314,367
L$260 / US$1.00 - L$2,156,359

I have sale orders at 261 and 260. based on recent history I would expect the 261 to sell at some point during Nov so have the most sat at that amount. Less sat at 260 on the off chance.

If I then need to cash out fast I'll just cancel everything and create a new sell order at 264 for an very quick transaction.

There is no point at all having L$ sat doing nothing on your avatar in world unless you plan to spend it. Leave as much on the exchange as possible to get the best price (especially with the £ being so weak at the mo.)

Thanks, Porky. This is all very interesting, and I've definitely changed the way I cash out now.

This is what I'm thinking, too - it sure seems that way.

I'd make a solid 90 USD USD more if I waited for the sorta random 262 rate and cashed out the month then, instead of at 264, but I prefer consistency to day trading.

The market looked ready to move, too - not much trading to prevent a breakthrough to 260. It also looks like a lot of the usual currency trading crowd are asleep at the wheel, too - why aren't they cashing in more on the clear opportunity?

Strange days. Uncertainty makes for opportunity, but it also puts negative pressure on the economy.

Yeah, I don't like it. There's all sorts of money to be made if the exchange rate starts flying all over the place and since I've automated my exchange trading completely I'd probably stand to profit to some degree. On the other hand the certainty of a stable exchange rate sure makes doing business a lot easier.