Most metas go for around 70g on my server.. the eternals to make them go for about 50g. So while there is a profit, its a fairly modest one, and there's alot of competition.

While this situation is likely to unfold it will be slightly offset as the completion of the daily slows down. When people have their rewards and bought all their recipies they are likely to do fewer cooking dailies than before. While you or I will still see it as quick and easy buck or potential investment there are a lot of completionists out there who are satsified with having the recipies without having a large need for the actual spices.

Unfortunatly for those of us who are used to rely on cooking and alchemy for income the raiding so far have not been very demanding for those involved. The lack of a true geartest is slowing demand for topnotch foods, flasks, pots etc to a minimum. If the next raiding instance are in the lines of the TBCprenerf raiding then we could of course se a reversal of fortune.

So don't give up on the spices just yet. Lay low and keep spicemongering, soon enough people will have grow bored of the daily cooking and if food buffs becomes essential then they are in limited supply in a way that a lot of other products aren't. (a single grinder can't produce more than a fixed number per day no matter how much he grinds, unlike say the old primals where a single grinder could dump the market beyond profitable)

The thing about spices is that I'd guess there are already thousands rotting in banks on most servers. And you can get 10 per day per character. You don't need anything more than a lvl 70 alt to get your 10. Then there is the upcoming fish feast, which will further dampen the "spices per raid pet attempt" equation even if people decide that the relatively tiny benefit of the spices-based food buffs is worth it.

I'm surprised at the above post referencing a market for this stuff at all, but for what it's worth I think there'll be a huge pent-up supply of Northern Spices before they are in any kind of consistent demand.

I think this is the key to profiting from Jewelcrafting, for sure. I arrived late to the party, only levelling up Jewelcrafting just over a week ago so I missed out on the crazy profits from rare cuts early on. However, I've still managed to make 5000g in the space of that week, together with ~2500g of uncut gems which I'll probably sell off bit by bit over the festive season when demand will likely plummet with people off visiting families and the like. That's 5000g net profit incidently, not gross. I buy all my ore from the AH - my other profession is Alchemy which makes me a modest couple of hundred gold four or five days a week from selling flasks. Even wth a limited selection of cuts I've done well by making sensible choices in terms of what cuts I've bought and taking advantage of market peaks/troughs when selling gems and buying ore respectively.

The importance of understanding the market really cannot be underestimated. Obviously the patterns will vary from server to server depending on populations and raid times but taking the time to learn and take advantage of them will result in significantly higher profits. I'm not going to go into all the specifics of market conditions on my server as I'd rather not crash my own market but a I'll make a few observations that will hopefully get people thinking about how things work on their own servers.

1. Main raid days are great. I've found that there's two days that I can sell a decent number of gems at very high margins and one day were I can sell a decent number with not as good but still healthy margins. Everything else is a crapshoot - it's still possible to make money but it's much more dependent on finding an unexploited niche and getting what you can out of it before someone else moves in. This time frame can range from all day long to a few minutes but finding and monitoring that niche can be a lot of work.

2. Timing is everything. Throwing a load of gems up in the morning and expecting them to be gone when you get back from work will leave you disappointed as you are undercut more and more over the course of the day. Demand is highest in the evening, especially when Point 1 comes into play. Let the cheap stuff burn off during the day and try and post your auctions as close to prime selling time as possible, or, if you can, sit at the AH during this period and respond to demand as it happens. Obviously this won't be possible if you're raiding but if you get a ten minute break in the middle of a raid or rotate out for a boss by all means hop onto a second account to release a clutch of gems into the wild.

3. Weekends are bad. As mentoned elsewhere in this thread, on weekends you can expect to sell high volumes but margins will be relatively slim. In particular prices on the cheaper rare gems - sky sapphires and forest emeralds - will completely bottom out as casual players release them onto the AH en masse after using them to skill up. Ore prices may spike as people snap it up to level other professions. Undercutting will most likely be ruthless. You can be sure you'll sell a good few gems if you can be bothered constantly watching the market and relisting your gems to undercut the undercutters but personally I don't find it worth the effort.

4. The end of the week brings mixed blessings. Two major factors come into play on Mondays and Tuesdays (on European servers anyway, this may only relate to Mondays in the US): a) most guilds have cleared content so demand is lower and b) you'll have to contend with people desperately trying to shift the stuff they didn't manage to sell at the weekend. Net result is that gems sell for less. However, the counterpoint is that with gems so relatively low in price, those who like to prospect and sell their gems immediately will be less inclined to do so, as will those who can't necessarily afford to take uncut gems into inventory. Less demand on saronite means that prices fall, making this a great time to snap up cheap ore to form your stock for next week.

This does require a fair amount of effort to keep track of and I don't mean suggest that I completely avoid selling at weekends and stuff like that because the fact is that if I see an opportuinity to make a tidy profit, I'll take it, regardless of when it is. The point is more that with some research and preperation you can minimise your expenditure and maximise your profit rather than scrabbling about in the dirt with the undercutters chasing after every single sale.

Also, if someone can figure out how to shift Sky Sapphires, do tell. I have a ton of them in inventory now and have literally been giving them away to guildies as they're just not worth the hassle of trying to sell.

I have, with the help of my younger brother,more or less all professions covered and, so far, the best gold/hour ratio is [Reinforced Cobalt Chestpiece]. Costs 4 [Cobalt Bar] and out of 50 pieces (test batch), after disenchanting them, we got 124 [Infinite Dust] (averaging 100 gold per stack or 600 gold total) and 18 [Greater Cosmic Essence] (averaging 30 gold a piece or 540 gold total). Mining the required [Cobalt Bar] takes between 30 and 60 minutes depending on how many miners are in the area (I would recomend Howling Fjord SW corner quarter) and [Infinite Dust] with [Greater Cosmic Essence] are some of the fastest selling items on the market. Obviously, one could further refine the "money scheme" by selling enchants instead of raw materials but in my opinion simpler is better.

Actually Oldhoof at least on my server there are plenty of enchanters paying 50g+ to enchant things that are orange. Add a pocket inscriber to make vellums for free and you can stock up on interesting enchants, Although selling enchants tends to yield lower income than the raw mats.

[Reinforced Cobalt Chestpiece] alone is causing the normalization between Cobalt and enchanting mats on my server and I assume most servers. The price of Cobalt is slowly being driven up while the price of enchanting mats are coming down. The demand for Cobalt is largely being driven by this process as the only other significant use is people skilling up.

Personally, I have made a ridiculous amount of gold off this single conversion. I just scoop up all the Cobalt Bars and Ore under 60g a stack. At my servers current prices, the DEing mats from a stack of Cobalt converted into chestpieces is worth at least 100g so it's easy profit. The most time intensive part of the process is simply DEing it all.

If you have the means, get on this bandwagon now because it won't last. Either the mats will be changed (4 Cobalt for a level 77 green? wtf?) or the prices will stabalize to where this is barely profitable once it becomes more commonly known. It takes very little effort, no special skills or abilities, and yields a high profit margin. Nothing with these qualities lasts for long.

The disenchanting trick works for any of the armor professions based on the economy, and even just trash greens from Northrend in the 68-72 range. With even a single dust going for over 5g, and a LESSER essence able to get the same from someone savvy, I've found that by buying greens that are under 10g on my server I would at least break even and often profit...up until about now. With the recent changes to enchanting's material requirements upcoming, the price is sure to fluctuate [initial reaction is likely to be an increase] so this should reliably turn out for a few days. After that, it's going to depend entirely on your server once more and the number of people playing the market.

I am wondering what the situation is with Eternals for other peoples economies. Recently the bottom fell out on the value of eternals. Before you could get waters and shadows for 5-10g. I'd use my alchemy transmutes to make fire eternals usually. This was when we had the long cooldown, so it wasn't really a money maker, but it was a guarenteed 40g turning water into fire, often more if the eternal fires were going for above 70g. Now our market is just flooded with eternals of every sort. Eternal fires go for as little as 30g.

Have others seen similar things within the last week or 2? I am not sure if it is just a lot more people are level 80 now and are starting to farm winterspring? I leveled alchemy early and started farming eternals well before 80 to make meta gems and I didn't see many people farming there. Or is it possible that lowering the transmute timer has made it so that a lot of people can now turn eternal water into fire and they are now using every cooldown to flood the market with eternals.

I have a suspicion life motes drops from herb nodes have been increased somehow. We used to have maybe 5-10 eternal lifes up at one time in the AH, going for 75-100g and one day the market just start to explode with life, having now finally bottomed out at 20ish per life, with dozens and dozens of them listed.

Ninja nerfs/changes always sound stupid though, so if anyone has a better explanation than this, I'd like to hear it.

I'm not really a fan of "Onyxia Deep Breathes More" theories, but it does indeed look like something happened either to the Eternal Life supply, or the demand. Prices on our server has dropped significantly on all Eternals, making Eternal Fire the only sought after Eternal (and that one down to 40g as I write this). The rest are down to between ten and fifteen gold each.

Earlier, eternals/primals were what you farmed for and sold in order to make money, but despite how easy gold is to get through dailies, it seems that Eternals either drop more, or are used for less.

Looking at a list of what Eternal Life is reagent for really doesn't pose a solution either. Some of the epic crafts (ring, cloak, legpatch) should be taking its share of the available stock, but prices still keep dropping.

Eternal Life will jump back up when the patch comes out due to an increased supply of Snowfall Ink. Just bought like 100 Eternals for 20-25g apiece. $$$ Also now is a good time to stock up on Ink of the Sea due to people offloading it for ridiculously low prices. I got like 40 stacks for under 30g. Snowfall Ink for 10-15g apiece? Yes please.

Not to mention it's almost January and another round of Darkmoon Faire deck turn ins.

You definitely shouldn't base your long term price expectations on experiences from the past month and a half. Maybe Blizzard did increase the drop rate. Maybe more players hit 80, got into farming mode, saw the high prices and wanted a piece of the action. Next week prices could be back up to 30-40g if the same people who farmed them were disappointed in the price drop and moved onto other things, causing a shortage again.

It can be hard to plan investments of time or gold if you're not sure where the market is heading, but just keep an eye on it and don't interpret every change as a permanent one.

The timer changing to 20 hours really helped you get a xmute a day, so that is part of it.

Once the patch hits, demand for Life will jump, since it will be easy to get snowfall ink for Cards.

I'm wrestling with the idea of spending 6 jc tokens on one of the epic ring designs, but I'm not sure if it would generate a lot of money in the long run. Dragon's eyes usually sell for around 300g on my server, and I've seen the epic rings on the AH for around 2500g, but I'm not sure if anyone is actually buying them. Has anyone had any success just buying dragon eyes and crafting the epic rings to sell to people? If so, which ring sells the best (tanking, melee, caster)?

Oh, they move. They are very powerful BoE epics that for a variety of specs compete with raid drops. This means that if you have oodles and oodles of cash, you shouldn't just make ten of them and sit, but having one of any given design on you [or at least available to craft] can be an excellent cash source. Storing materials in an enchanting bag with a space somewhere for the ore is probably the best way to sit on mats while trying to move a variety of designs. If I weren't silly and not deadset against my main being a JC and just leveled up my alt already, I'd be doing this myself.

As for Life, it's not really a secret...the Faerie is not 'in town', not everyone has caught wind of the upcoming changes involving Snowfall, and a variety of people are just trying to move stock instead of being market savvy and waiting for a demand boom. On Moonguard, I've found that while Life is the most accessible to buy off the AH in either form for the most part, it also varies from between around 12.5g per Eternal to 35g per. Fire, otoh, stays steady above fourty because the demand/supply doesn't really change dramatically over time...Life's does. Save up on Life you aren't using, and consider buying up anything that's so amazingly low at the moment for the upcoming Snowfall change. Obviously, the market is unpredictable to an extent regardless, so it's an 'at your own risk / YMMV' situation, but if things are half-price or less of the 'standard', you can probably profit soon(ish)[tm] for foresight now.

Any thoughts on a what a proto-drake whelp pet would go for? I can't find a record of one actually being sold.

I was about to say 'aren't these BoP?', but found the Bind of Use info [sellable pet? O-o]. I would imagine this is entirely dependant upon how crazy collectors are on your server, and knowing who they are. Like most hard to accquire vantiy pets, you can likely make a fair bit off them, but you may be better served by setting a comfortable minimum bid on Friday night and letting it get bid on for 24-48 hours.

I believe one sold on our server for something absurd like 20k.

Just a reminder, buy up cheap Christmas pets. They'll be going for 1000g apiece in 6 months.

Another reminder; you need to be level twenty to open the Gaily Wrapped Present which contains the four Seasonal Pets. Go to Ironforge/Orgrimmar on all your eligible alts to pick up different BoE pets and mail them to your bank for some great money in half a year.

edit; grammar.