Become the Donald of Gielinor: Short-term Investing

May 2016

We have covered the basics of flipping in the Grand Exchange already. It’s time to talk about the next step, a more advanced and difficult way to make money on the Grand Exchange and become The Donald of Gielinor — Investing. While flipping can satisfy most of your gold-making needs, some merching (which is what gold-making is called in RuneScape) enthusiasts want a bigger thrill. They may also not have enough time to track their progress all the time, participating in bidding wars all day, every day. If you are one of these people, you should try your hand at Investing.

Before we start discussing the basics of Investing, we have to warn you. You should become and experienced flipper first. Successful investing is harder, it also requires more game knowledge; however, the upside is that it can make you just as much gold as flipping does, with less time and effort spent in the Grand Exchange. The Donald’s companies have been declared bankrupt four times, take care so that it doesn’t happen to you. If such misfortune DOES befall you, we are ready to bail you out like the good partner we are.

So, investing. How does it differ from flipping? To put it simply, while you buy and sell items immediately when you flip, you buy items you think to be at their lowest possible price, banking on a bet that their price will rebound soon, and selling them when it does, hopefully making a tidy profit as a result. At least that is the idea behind short-term investing, which is the slightly easier kind of investing you could do.

When investing, it is even more important to observe and understand market behavior than it is when you’re flipping. Even though you might be tempted to invest in an item that is at its lowest price in… forever, don’t pull the trigger too fast. Uninformed investors are bankrupt investors. Makes you think whether The Donald isn’t such a good businessman, huh?

Anyway, uninformed investors. The worst thing you can do is to buy something at a low price without understanding WHY the price is so low. Bot activity, patch changes, or many other factors could influence this sudden drop in price. Do not buy into an item without understanding why it’s as low as it is. If you don’t, you will put yourself in danger of having to hold on to that item for a long time, hoping that it’s price will rise, having to sell it at a loss after getting in too early, or simply not being able to sell it all because of the overwhelming supply in a total crash.

When trying your hand at short-term investing, you should aim to complete the buy-sell cycle in 48 hours or so. To help you find the optimal time to sell, you should frequently track its price, patiently waiting for its price to reach its ceiling and completing its rebound turn.

Seeing as you probably aren’t a very experienced investor, we recommend starting small and not putting too much of your Runescape gold into one investment. Diversified assets is a cornerstone of real-life investing. This way, when one piece of the market doesn’t go your way, you can hopefully make gold in another area. Also, you should find your niche and know it like the back of your hand as this will make it easier to track your investments.

This is it for this installation of Becoming The Donald of Gielinor. Hopefully, you now understand what short-time investing in the Grand Exchange is. We wish you the best of luck and hope to hear about your orange exploits on your way to financial greatness.