Influences on cards value (Part 3 of 3)

In the previous parts I've shown how to predict and detect card fluctuation as soon as possible.
Today I will be showing you how to price your cards to take full advantage of it.

Pushing up your buy prices
When it comes to manually pricing a card I always try to buy for more than most other bots and sell for less, it seems ideal, but not always possible. In cards where value is very stabilized its safer to push the buying price closer to the selling price, whilst cards that tend to fluctuate are riskier.

As an example, Inferno Titan is priced at about 8.5 while Sword of Body and Mind is selling for about 7.75 but  I am buying the Sword at a higher price (6.5) than the Titan (6.25). The reason for this is because I am confident that in 2 weeks time the Equipment value should still be over the 6.5 Event tickets I paid, while the Red giant might not.

With the well known Cycle of Investor Emotions I would set Inferno Titan as going through an Euphoria or Anxiety phase.






Changing your prices in PersonalPrices.txt
Firstly you will need to remember that any price listed in the PersonalPrices.txt will ignore all other modifiers (Cardsmtgo3.txt, correction rates, personalpercentages.txt, limits and quantities) unless left blank.
My guide to do this is to play safe if you are unsure and push buy prices higher only if you feel confident to do so, as you see cards value fluctuating you will be able to identify which cards are the safe and risky ones.

On value fIuctuation I follow this small rule:
If a card value goes up, increase the selling price quickly to market price and slowly increase the buying price (0.2 per day or so).
If a card value drops and you own the card slowly decrease the selling price (0.2 per day or so) or if you don't drop it straight into the current market selling price, drop the buy price straight to market price in either situations.

Here is an example of how I manually priced my Inferno Titans before, during and after the Worlds 2011 tournament following this rule:



Conclusion
Might sound strange but never feel tempted in raising very quickly the buying price on a card that just gone up due to recent success because if it drops in value it results in a loss.
When running multiple bots it might be best to set buying quantities as low as 1 on cards that you buy really high, avoid buying multiple playsets in a matter of minutes. This might be crucial in case of an unexpected price drop (as happened before on standard banning of "Jace, the Mind Sculptor" and "Stoneforge Mystic" earlier this year). 

Also remember to keep PersonalPrices.txt regularly updated since those prices wont be affected by updating your mtgocards3.txt Price list! :)