After banking mega cash this weekend (Almost had enough for an epic flyer in one week of work). I've found a few things to note since I started investigating this procedure as a JC:

1. Know your market: I've managed to put up tons of gems that sell sporadically. Not everyone wants +hit but people will buy them, eventually.

2. Be patient: Sometimes stuff doesn't sell, relax. It WILL sell just have to relist it again.

3. Auctioneer Advanced saves lives: I can't count the time saved by using this mod to track sales and who buys and sells stuff from me. I've managed to find a seller of Saronite ore and Eternal earth after showing whom I bought the goods from. Learn your suppliers and offer them guaranteed sales.

4. Post at night or on weekends: This kind of goes with 1, but more detail. I was religiously posting dust for 4.99/each most of the week. On Saturday the price spiked to 5.99/each and then on Sunday it shot to as high as 8.99/each. Chances are people were doing raids on Friday and Saturday night, and then needed gear enchanted so they were buying up mats like crazy. I made double what I was making. As others have posted, mornings will be for buying ore that people farmed that night, night is when all the kids come home and they want to enchant their new pretty gear. Posting my materials on Tuesday morning is a dumb idea due to server reset and most folks not raiding that night. Each day is different so learn when your major guilds are doing runs.

5. Tank the market: Some people will hate this idea but I've found that there was a particular gem that was selling reliably for a high price. So I went, got the pattern , and proceeded to dump 20 of them on the market. I under cut them by 2/3 and most sold, I still have some sitting around and I'll post them later. This will get those gems that you have NOTHING to do with (Forest emeralds, twilight opals) unless you have an epic pattern. I've gotten one angrygram from someone about this, but it's an alt so I really don't care as it won't affect my main. Eventually the market will recuperate but you'll have gotten your money out of it. ONLY DO THIS FOR A QUICK BURST IN CASH, LONG HAUL=BAD.

6. Bank your funds: Get a guild bank for an alt, park alt in that guild, dump excess funds into guild bank. What I do is a very careful process. I've setup a system where:
A. If a character has 75G or more it sends all funds to the bank alt in increments of 75G. i.e. 76G will send 75G leaving 1G in bank. 74G will not send.
B. On bank alt if I have 400G, put 400G funds in the bank. i.e. 420G, 400G goes in and I keep 20G out. 370G nothing will go in.
This gives me a good way to save lots and lots of money and don't touch it. Of course this goes out the window when I see saronite ore for 18G/stack but it prevents me from buying silly crap on characters.

7. Set a price limit on materials: My hard cap is 26G/ore for a stack and EE is 8G. Stick to your guns. Don't go over, it's tempting but if you keep your hard limits in place you won't cut into your precious margins. This is where 6 comes in

I'm sure there is more, but overall the process of prospecting ore into gems, crafting blue gems, making jewlery to DE is a very profitable one.

It is the norm for commodities like dust and saronite to drop on the weekends and rise during the week. This has been the pattern I've seen for years. I'm surprised that dust rose so much on your server on the weekend. As you've only been doing this for a week I wouldn't suggest you count on that until you get more data. Something with the volume of infinite dust never fluctuates that much on my busy server unless it's related to a content patch. I wonder if you are on a lower pop server.

On the other hand, "ready to use" or impulse items sell better during the weekend. This includes expensive gear, enchanting scrolls and cut gems.

And infinite dust hit a new low this weekend with a bunch of people dumping it for 3.5. At first I was buying it up at this price in an attempt to keep a floor on the market price but the flood continued and I gave up.

I'm sitting on a whole lot of infinite dust now. What would you do if there was a free fall in the price of enchanting mats? Would you cut your losses and sell it or sit on it hoping for at least a temporary bump with 3.1? With the trend being deflation I've been hesitant to hold onto anything.

I saw this happen a few weeks ago on my old server and it worried me, but after about a week the market was back up for Infinite Dust. I wouldn't worry about it too much; there is a nearly endless demand for dust.

On my server, dust is selling more and more every day. A week back, dust was 3,5g, during weekend 4-4,5 and now its price is 6g. EE and gems are still 8g and 1,5-2g. I'm loving it!

3.1 coming:

1) Black diamonds - buy
2) Mats for boe belts/boots (this looks better than naxx items) - buy (runed orbs, icy dragonscales, spellweave, ebonweave, etc.)

That's what im doing atm anyway =)

Edit: Err looks like runed orbs is future ulduar drops, not 5mans drops (ye, stupid me) most probably mats for boe stuff from ulduar will rise in price, but not by very much.

In 3.1 there will be a new FOF :

Insane in the Membrane Raise your reputation with the areas listed below (Title Reward: The Insane)
Honored with Bloodsail Buccaneers
Exalted with Booty Bay
Exalted with Everlook
Exalted with Gadgetzan
Exalted with Ratchet
Exalted with Darkmoon Faire
Exalted with Ravenholdt
Exalted with Shen'dralar


Which means that the price of Pristine Black Diamond for the Shen'dralar libram will skyrocket (since they aren't really farmable, only saw one drop during my 90 libram farming in Diremaul...). I used to buy them for around 50g a few month ago but I was the only buyer. I would advice to stockpile those (as well as libram Focus/Protection/Rapidity) which are unique but can be placed in a guild bank.

I imagine they will introduce a Pristine Black Diamond JC cut in the same patch.

Even if this does happen, there's no harm in buying cheap [Pristine Black Diamond]s. On my server they are only 7g each, bought about 10 so far. And picking up a couple of the Librams for only 30g. Hoping to make a good profit.

They go for around 15g on my server which is pretty highly populated, but I managed to snag 30 black diamonds for a total of 3 gold this morning. With a JC this should be major bank for the few that are going to go crazy for the insane title.

I snagged a bunch of pristine black diamonds this evening (about 25 for 50G), but I am still unsure what these will be doing after the ulduar patch. Can I get a little more explanation?

Any idea what quality gems the regular Black Diamonds will end up being? It seems unlikely that they will be anything useful given how low level Black Diamonds are, but it also lists colors for them, suggesting they are at least TBC-quality. I'm really curious what these are going to end up being used for, as I've got a bunch of them that I've been holding onto for years.

After seeing the craftable ilvl 226 items on mmo-champ yesterday, I expected the material market (titansteel, ebonweave, spellweave and moonshroud) to react. However prices are as usual.

How are things on your servers? Don't you think EVERYONE will use ilvl226 items for fillers?

Is it too early to stock up? Too risky?

The general masses dont move fast, or that fast to new information. In a week or so once the PRT information becomes more and more globalised you can expect prices to creep up. Dont expect a jump yet, as the patch is still a good long time away. Also many of the standard gold freaks will have been buying Titansteel cooldowns and have a nice stockpile as it is. So there is no hurry to grab that much more right now. Once it gets to a week away to the patch we can expect that many people will stock up (even though they will still lack the orbs).

I think all of them require Runed Orbs (most probably raid drops) and maybe recipe drops. Those would limit any effect on normal goods market i think.

Runed Orbs might very well be the next tier of Frozen Orbs concerning availability. Maybe they´ll come from the AC Tournament. Maybe they´ll drop from Raids. Maybe they´ll be purchasable with Badges of Conquest.
Anyway, stocking up on EE isn´t a bad idea for JC´s with Enchanters on hand. Either prices stay... Nothing lost. Or prices rise... Well, gj, easy profit! No reason to believe prices will drop.
Stacking some dozen bars of Titansteel isn´t hurting either. You can and probably will craft the 2 items for yourself. Or some twink. Or sell to the masses with profit. Or simply get a Hog or Chopper

Also, it's 6 runed orbs for the ones I've looked at. Not just one. The choke point of making these new epics will definitely be from the availability of orbs. Also, given the items are level 226. I'd imagine runed orbs will only be dropping from ulduar 25 (or last bosses of ulduar 10). There's a possibility of them available for emblem of conquest as well.

Runed orb availability aside, I'm personally waiting to see what kind of gear is actually dropping in Uld 10/25. If Uld 10 items of comparable stats are readily available, then the new tailoring gear will occupy the same niche as the old tailoring gear - items for casuals and twinks.

I'm hoping that Blizzard will add something for tailoring to pull it out of it's current slot of "Most useless for endgame" crafting skill.

Isn't Uld 10 going to be dropping 213 gear (with the last boss presumably dropping 226)? If thats the case the 226 crafted pieces will definitely be good for raiders. The LW dps ones are especially nice since there are no 226 boots/belt available currently.

This is likely correct. They've said a couple times now that the U-10 gear is probably going to be 213 (and that the encounters will probably drop Emblems of Valor, with the new Emblem type only for the 25 person raid.)

Anyone have any advice on which Valor Badge Bracers are best/sell the best? Going to try and sell a few but I imagine most players don't know exactly what the valor tokens can buy, so I'm thinking of linking one or two in my trade chat spam.

I'd suggest holding off until 3.1 dust settles. They might add something new for them.
Although if you're intent on selling, I'd guess Plate DPS (used by 3), Caster DPS (used by 3 or more), with a "...or any other." tucked on at the end.

I really wouldn't recommend holding onto Valor badges, as Ulduar10 will remove a large chunk of the market that would buy the BoE bracers and increase the supply, driving the selling price way down.

It may be wise to wait until just before 3.1 hits in case the PTR reveals new badge items, if that's what you mean. So far it's not looking terribly optimistic: