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TWIRP Special Indexes Report and Analysis (2008/01/21) TWIRP Index Values (2008/01/14)

This is the TWIRP report covering price changes and economic trends for the week of January 14, 2008. Please read on for a summary of TWIRP index results, and be sure to check out the subsections for more index reports, charts and details.

If you are new to TWIRP and have not yet learned about how it works, I recommend reading either the sections Understanding TWIRP and TWIRP Index Details, or the more concise TWIRP Quick Guide. Without that background you may have a hard time understanding this report.

Global Composite Yield (TWIRP): 100.6 +1.5% p
Skill Composite Yield (TWIRP-S): 99.0 +1.6% p
Combat Composite Yield (TWIRP-C): 102.1 +2.0% p
Key Items Affordability (TWIRP-X-KEY): 104.0 +5.9% pp

Advancing Items: 75 (24.8%)
Declining Items: 184 (60.7%)
Unchanged Items: 44 (14.5%)

Item "Winner" of the Week: Marrentill: +44.8% pppp
Item "Loser" of the Week: Marrentill seed: -34.8% qqqq

Index "Winner" of the Week: Herb Drop Value: +17.3% ppp
Index "Loser" of the Week: Herb Seed Drop Value: -26.1% qqqq

Crude Volatility Index (TWIRP-X-VOL): 625.6

Looking back, this week will probably be known as the “Great Pre-Summoning Sell-off”. A huge number of items have dropped in price over the last several days, which is reflected in a 5.9% increase in key items affordability (very large given that this is an average of 50 item prices). In some cases the drops are even more significant than the indexes show, since they have mostly come in just the most recent three or four days. It is likely that these effects are due to players liquidating unwanted items to raise cash that they feel may be needed for the new skill.

Given this, it’s interesting to see that the main TWIRP index actually went up by 1.5% this week. This is simply due to the fact that while the prices that players get for items has gone down, the average cost of supplies and equipment for playing has gone down by even more.

I think this result nicely illustrates much of the purpose behind the TWIRP project—to show that even if prices may go up or down dramatically, the actual impact on players may not be so obvious.

The ratio of about 5:2 for declining and advancing item prices further supports the breadth of the price drops this week. Note that the 44 unchanged items really show just how messed up the economy is thanks to the Grand Exchange—most of these items haven’t changed in price either because they are not trading due to bad pricing, or because the prices levels are locked in due to artificial price floors and controls.

Skilling recovered somewhat from a drop in profitability last week, while combat yield benefitted most from major drops in the costs of combat-related potions. In particular, prayer potions dropped by almost 20% this week. The #1 winners and #1 losers of the week tell a nice tale in summarized form of two related items moving in opposite directions. This is good news for those training Farming, but not for powerlevellers using tree seeds, as we’ll see.

This week will be an interesting baseline for the next report, which should be the first one that will show how key items react to the new skill Summoning. I will of course be adding key Summoning-related items to TWIRP once it becomes obvious what they are, and I have gathered enough data to integrate them into the indexes in a meaningful way.

For more indexes, reports and analysis, be sure to read the subsections below. Otherwise, see you next week.

TWIRP Special Indexes Report and Analysis (2008/01/21) TWIRP Index Values (2008/01/14)