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2/ This thread is geared towards someone who has never traded with Icons, wants to start doing it, but doesn't know where to start.
3/ Icon trading really isn't that different than trading with any other rare special card. The most important thing to understand is that the lowest listed price at any point in time is not necessarily the price it sells at.
4/ Due to rarity, it could look like an Icon's price is one amount, when in reality there are just temporarily no listings at its real sell price. For that reason it's very important to learn what price an Icon sells at independent of current market listings.
5/ How do we get started? Step 1 - pick 1 Icon. Pick a player you like IRL, or a card you want to use for your team. Might as well enjoy playing with it while trading it. We're going to use Mid Maldini on Xbox.
6/ Step 2 - Go to FUTBIN and look at both the daily and hourly price graphs. Daily will show you the average price each day, hourly will show you how it fluctuates within a day.
https://www.futbin.com/21/player/126/paolo-maldini
https://www.futbin.com/21/player/126/paolo-maldini
7/ Daily shows us that Maldini has been between 1.61 and 1.68 during the last week. Hourly shows us that he's fluctuated as low as 1.59 in the past 3 days. Now we have an idea of what his normal price is.
8/ Step 3 - Look at FUTBIN's Market Sales History. This shows us the prices Maldini sold for in the past few days. We see the highest sale yesterday was 1.69M and the lowest 1.58M. We see more sales around 1.6M than 1.69M, which looks like an outlier
https://www.futbin.com/21/sales/126/paolo-maldini
https://www.futbin.com/21/sales/126/paolo-maldini
9/ Step 4 - Go to the transfer market and search for your Icon. Add one to your watch list and leave it there expired. Once in a while throughout the day go to your watch list and compare price on the Icon. See what the current market listings are and what the lowest price is.
10/ If there are any open bids, add those to your watch list also. You don't have to bid on them, just watch them to see where they sell at. Over time this will reinforce the prices you learned in steps 2 and 3.
11/ Step 5 - Understand the weekly cycle of Icons. They are highest in price during Thurs/Fri night and Sat morning typically. They drop throughout the week and are typically lowest Wed. Before buying an Icon, think of which way the price is trending.
12/ Step 6 - Predict a realistic sell price. We learned that Maldini sold for 1.58M-1.69M yesterday, but 1.69 was an outlier. Realistically 1.62M is more likely. We also know that Mon prices tend to be lower than Sun, so lets lower the sell price to 1.6M flat.
13/ Step 7 - Set a profitable buy price. A sale at 1.6M has 80k of tax, so we'd have to buy for 1.52M to break even. We want a decent profit after tax for it to be worth our time and risk. Lets say we want 50k after tax profit. Our buy price is then 1.47M.
14/ Step 8 - Go back to the transfer market and search your Icon. Is there one lower than your buy price? Buy it. Is there an open bid? Watch it and try to win a bid under your buy price. We search Maldini and see nothing under our buy price, so we don't buy anything.
15/ Let's pretend that we found a Maldini for 1.47M and bought it. Step 9 is then to sell it. We need to pick a listing price. We want to maximize the time that our listing is the cheapest on the market, while still listing for a profitable price that we're happy with.
16/ We want to sell for at least 1.6M so we won't undercut the lowest price right now (1.594M). We also see a 1.65M listing with 2 days left, so realistically we won't be able to sell above that.
17/ I'd list for something like 1.62M right now, accepting that I'll have to wait for the 1.594M listing to expire or sell before ours has a chance of selling.
18/ I mentioned at the start of the thread that the lowest listed price is not necessarily the price it sells at. Use this to your advantage when selling. You want to look for times when your Icon is rare and the price fluctuates high. That's your best time to sell.
19/ Once you get comfortable trading with your 1 Icon, repeat the process with another Icon and learn it's price. Then another. Then another. Now you're an Icon trader.
