Micro-Trading

A lot of people ask what the fastest and best way to make money is in this game.  Anyone who does them will tell you micro-trades are the best way to make cash quickly in this game.  This guide is an intro to micro-trading.

The Basics

First of all, you may be wondering what I mean when I say "micro-trade."  Micro trades are trades between districts and in the same city. Instead of the large trades, you may do when moving between cities (ie Chicago to Detroit), these trades are all done in one city.  Most times it means moving between districts, but not always. We'll get to that. To start, I'll show you an example of a micro trade:

I'm currently sitting in South Side, Chicago, and here are the prices of barbiturates, heroin, and cocaine: (NOTE: for the sake of keeping this guide simple we're going to limit it to the big 3 drugs.  You can use all of these same principles on anything, but there's not quite as much profit.)

Barbiturates    $2,756
Heroin    $5,070
Cocaine    $7,245

And here are the Det/Chi city averages for right now:

Barbiturates    $3,560
Heroin    $5,222
Cocaine    $6,953
I decided to move heroin to the Suburbs. We'll get into why I chose heroin a little later, but here are the results when I moved to Suburbs, Chicago:

Sold 36 units of Heroin for $196,632 for a profit of $14,112.

Now I understand that it doesn't seem like that much, but keep in mind you can do this every 5 minutes.  Also sometimes those numbers are closer to $40k - $50k, so you can make a huge profit.

How it works

For this to work, you'll want to move between districts as much as possible.  It takes 5 minutes to cool down before you can travel again, so just keep an eye out and move whenever possible.  I personally move in the same order every time (Black Bottom to Corktown to Downtown to Black Bottom) You don't have to do it like that, but I find that it makes it easier to remember where you've been, so you don't go to the same district before its prices have changed.

The main things you'll be looking at are the current price of the drug and the average of the two cities.  What you'll want to do is pick a drug that is BELOW the city average. In the example above I bought heroin at $200 cheaper than what the average is.  The reasoning behind this is that you may get lucky and find the district that is way above the average, but chances are you're going to find a lot of districts that are not that high.

So, now you've bought your drug at lower than the average.  What next? Move. Go to another district and try to make some money.  That's it. You've done a micro trade. Now do this every 5 minutes and you'll be amazed at how quickly your money goes up.


*NOTE

I've started using the set prices more than the city averages as they tend to be a bit more helpful for the city you're working in (also I don't believe you get averages if you don't have the timer perk).  IE if you see this:

Rumor has it that Joe Melizzano has set Coke at $7,486, Heroin at $9,714 and Barbs at $5,445 for Detroit but your local dealers may charge you more or less.

• Buy lower than the prices listed and move to other districts.  I've found this to be the most efficient way of moving the top 3 drugs.  Other ones you'll have to use city averages.
•  
• Pay attention to the time

I was torn between putting this here and the advanced topics, but I feel like this is a major thing to pay attention to.  Below is a table of when the major price changes occur in each city:

When I say a major price change it could be anywhere from a $1k move (ie $4,500 for heroin, then $5,500). But it can also be large jumps of $4k - $5k (ie $5,500 for coke, then $10,500). This can lead to some HUGE money gains. I've done a couple where I make $200,000 just buying a drug, sitting for 2 minutes when the change happens and then selling again.  Never even needing to leave the district. On that same note, it can lead to some disastrous results if you forget about it. Kinda like this:

[Suburbs, CH] Barbiturates     $4,647 $2,624 36
Sold 36 units of Barbiturates for $94,464 for a loss of $-72,828. <- makes you wanna cry

So, if it is near the price change and you see that the prices are near the max for your sister cities, then sell sell sell.  If they're on the lower end buy buy buy.
 

Advanced Topics

City average vs Sister City Average (the displayed average)

*Important thing to note: drug pricing changes will only fluctuate roughly 10% off of the average of the city.  So if the average is 2500 the prices will likely range (roughly) anywhere between 2300 and 2700.

Now, you're probably asking yourself.  "Why didn't he chose to move barbiturates?"  Well, two reasons honestly. One, it was a hunch.  You will tend to see more profits on a regular basis between heroin and cocaine.  Also, I tend to shy away when I see that large of a gap from the average. As you know the average will be between two numbers.  So, when you see the average of barbs is $3,560 there are 2 likely scenarios here. Either Detroit and Chicago both have drugs between say $3,200 and $3,800.  Or, one of the cities has prices around $2,500 (between roughly $2,300 and $2,700) and one of the cities has prices around $4,500 (between $3,900 and $5,100). When I saw that the barb price was $2,756 I decided we are probably in the second scenario. Meaning that Chicago's city average is probably more likely around $2,500.  So, if that is the case (which it was), then heroin is definitely the right choice.

Price changes

I don't think there is any set times when minor changes occur in each district, but it tends to be somewhere between every 5-10 minutes.  So, keep this in mind while moving. Where this comes in real handy is when you see a really high price on a drug. For example, say you see coke at $11k.  You're thinking "Holy crap, wish I had some coke right now." Well, move out of the district with something else. Now let us say in the next district you get to you see coke at $9k.  Go ahead and buy it and backtrack.

Achievements

The drug achievements can be easily obtained without making much money or possibly losing money but can all be done very quickly with this method:

Take the max amount of drugs you can carry and divide it by the number of drugs you still need achievements for. Buy an equal amount of drugs for each of those drugs then move districts. Whichever has the highest increase, Quick Buy that one. It will buy the remaining drugs at cost but you will have brought over X amount that was cheaper. It will average the price you bought all of them for and give you a chance to sell all for a profit, giving you credit for the achievement. You can knock out Marijuana -> Morphine in about 5 hours. It won’t make you much money but the experience is totally worth it.

Corrupt Agents

If you have been blessed with Quad CAs be sure to buy a normal CA first and then redeem your Quad CA that way you can have FIVE amazing corrupt agents earning you money instead of just four.

The majority of this content was originally seen by myself in the amazing HQ of Star, so she deserves the credit for the content. Thank you, Star.