No Money to be Made Trading L$

Well, I hoped to become a huge virtual currency trader. The first couple of weeks, I did really good, making about US$200 per day. But now, the spread between the bid and ask is so small it hardly covers fees (like right now, it actually doesn't cover fees).

So, I guess there will be no L$ Donald Trumps. Shame too because I was feeling pretty cool making $200 per day which would have been about $73,000 USD per year. It was cool because I'm going to be finishing college next year and I felt pretty cool telling people that I'm already making double what most people graduating with my degree make. Now I'll be lucky to make $7.00 per day. So that kind of sucks.

Anyways, I dont really know why I am posting this, only to say that L$ trading isn't that lucerative anymore.

That means that the L$ has neared its equilibrium point.

What you see is pretty normal as far as ForEx markets go. They don't make money on intradate trading, they make placements.

Cow, if you did that well consider yourself lucky I haven't made $200 total yet but I don't trade as a day trader anyway. I buy early in the week and sell on the weekends so I get a wider spread.

Never should have been in the first place. This is a computer game, not a replacement for getting a real job.

Lewis

Yeah, what I used to do was check the computer every 1/2 hour. I'd always be the guy that offered 1L$ better than the best bid and L$1 better than the best ask.

Id say that for awhile there I was making $20 every 1/2 hour. Well, maybe a little less because when the bids first opened up, it was pretty competitive, but then after a few days the margins widened significantly, but lately margins are crap.

All I have to say is that if you ever get to a place where you think you will be making big bucks, you should wait for a bit before you start telling everyone that you hit gold because now it is going to be (and has been) embarassing telling everyone I originally told that I was banking that I'm not making much now.

Well at the time I kinda considered it my real job. LOL. I even told a lot of my friends I was in the virtual currency exchange business and now I look kinda stupid.

My trading pattern allows much more ingame playing and the new limit buys even announce when you make a trade ingame. Since I don't expect to execute any sells until the weekend anyway I'm pretty lax about checking the market during the week. Good luck in future trading.

Why do you expect making money simply by buying at ask rate minus 1 and selling at bid rate plus 1 ?
There may be opportunities of doing money this way - but not forever

Tell that to Anshe Chung and a hundred other SL'ers who do not have "Real jobs" and do remarkably well because of Second Life.

The only difference between me and them is that they had the money in the first place to stump up, and could afford to lose it if it all went belly up.

Lewis

Actually, most of the people who make a living or a partial living from SL are people who have busted their butt making great content. The great thing about SL in business terms is that you can start a business with practically zero capital. All you truly need is to be able to connect to SL (computer, ISP), a good idea, and the time to implement it.

The real money is in being a land baron.

Buy sim, parcel up, sell, profit, rinse, repeat.

Even easier if you pay a foreign student peanuts to do it whilst you live in luxury.

Lewis

Actually this isn't as true as it used to be. Run the numbers on what a sim sells for at auction, what parcels of that sort of land sell for and add in tier for possibly a couple of months. Right now you are luck to break even.

Well there must be plenty of money still in it otherwise people wouldn't be doing it. Don't for one minute be fooled into thinking they are providing a service out of the goodness of their heart..... its profit that drives them.

Oh, and the control and power you have over renters... did I mention that too?

One day one of the big name land barons is going to decide to give up and take their ball home with them... then LL will realise the damage that one player having too much power has.

Lewis

People like you are ruining SL.

Similar people but not Cow. What they are doing is selling $L to the general populous that is at a VERY competitive rate. This allows consumers to get the max ammount of $L for the RW $USD. At opportune times they are setting up buy orders at a rate better than what the current OTHER buy orders are offering. Giving people wanting to cash out the best IMMEDIATE value for their money without having to wait for sell orders to go through.

In both regards Cow is 1up'ing the competition. Playing these tight margins though is a gamble and currently the margins are so tight its not profitiable to cow. Cow is NOT demanding idiotic policies to help them out personally. Cow is not cursing anyones behaviour. They were just expressing that the current market is not supporting their business model. Nothing wrong wtih that at all.

Its the OTHER people trying to FORCE the rest of the world to support their one method of making a living that need condemned. Not Cow.

I really don't think you are right. Sure there may be a few land barons making money like you think. But there are at least a few dozen content creators who make a partial or full living from SL. Just a guess, but it's an educated guess.

I think it's more that, if you have enough money to stake, it's marginally easier to get into being a land baron or a day trader, than a content creator. After all, if you have L$ to sell, they're as good as anyone else's; land value can be improved by good terraforming but it's still saleable if you just flatten it and make some canals; but becoming a good enough content creator to sell a reasonable amount of stuff takes a lot of skill and practice (unless you have prior background of course). Also the level of skill required to make competitive content tends to rise over time, whereas non-terraformed land and L$ doesn't, meaning they scale a bit better.

Yeah, that is the ONLY difference between you and Anshe, uh huh

You know, I used to think that too - that Anshe could royally fuck over LL if she just suddenly pulled out, and how foolish it was for LL to let one player have them by the proverbial balls. Spending a few hours talking with Anshe and seeing what her actual risk exposure is, combined with having seen LL suspend her account for a billing dispute made me realize it is actually LL still firmly in control, and they actually have Anshe by the balls, so to speak. Think of it this way. At any moment, for any reason, LL could sezie all of Anshe's assets in world, including L$ stored in accounts. There are no contracts other than the TOS.

The servers are just essentially leased, not owned. If LL wanted to, they could easily screw her over quite readily and with little recourse on her part. If LL took back the servers, all the people who own deeds on Dreamland could easily be converted over to paying tier to LL instead of to her, with no loss of income on LL's part (Anshe's $195 per island would be replaced by all the land owners paying tier now to LL instead). Anshe has more to lose than LL, by far. What she has done is equal parts incredibly brave, and pretty foolish, I think. Luckily it has paid off for her so far, but it is still a dangerous game to play at that level - there is a lot to lose, which is why she has diversified what she is doing.

did you plan on working 7 days a week?

Apples and oranges you are talking about buying sims to rent plots. Warriorz is talking buying them to SELL plots. on the buy to sell model it is VERY difficult to make any kind of profit given the current land market.

Awww man, really? I mean, I'm totally not TRYING to ruin Secondlife or anything. I'm just trying to find my niche, you know?

Well, yeah.... I mean, it only took a few minutes each hour and if I could make 70k+ doing it, yeah, I'd work 7 days a week.

LOLZ.

Thats funny - I remember Anshe when she was an escort - and holding classes and events. Before you could even buy and sell L$ too.

I remember when she first started selling land, her first mall, her first sim.

I don't particulary like her, but I'll give her this:

She didn't have $$$ to sink into SL... in fact there was no way to do so when she started.

She got where she is by working her ass off.