Are the any risk free investments for Cataclysm?

This week I have asked my readers think about the logic behind the choices they make, to consider the 'what ifs' and 'buts' of their decisions. But are there any 100% risk free purchases to be made when getting ready for the next few weeks?

We cannot ever be 100% sure of anything. Blizzard could change the game forever in some way or another which would result in a change to the face of the WoW economy forever. And we have many examples of these, made with the flick of some code, that has done this in WotLK:

• Removing the cooldown on Titanium Bar transmutes
• Allowing the purchase of Eternals with Frozen Orbs
• Allowing the purchase of Arctic Fur with Heavy Borean Leather
• Increasing the drop rate of Frost Lotus (and then allowing the purchase using Frozen Orbs)
• Epic Gems - transmute, prospecting, honor
• The repeated changes to ink costs for glyphs
• Need/Greed/DE option for loot and the knock on affect to enchanting mat prices

This is just a small sample of changes that have had a huge impact on the price of items and have changed the economy significantly. In fact every alteration affects the price of something or other, somewhere in the game. And riding these changes is what makes the knowledgeable gold and the uninformed lose money

So nothing, and I mean nothing, is guaranteed. Take yesterday's news about the "Insane in the Membrane" achievement. That's the second announcement in a matter of a fortnight, and both have had very significant (but different) impact on the price of specific items. So even when you can prepare for change (with patch notes etc.) there can always be something from left field that is completely unpredictable.

Remembering all this, there are still some opportunities which are as close to 100% as they can be. One of them is the vendor search on Auctioneer.

The premise is simple. If you can buy something on the AH and then run that item to a vendor and sell it for more than you paid, then you make profit. The Auctioneer Addon has a search function which does just that. Providing the team developing the addon have their data right (and I was once caught out following a patch where there was a wee error which ended up costing me a few gold) then this is a 100% sure way to make money. Of course the profits to be made using this method are small. A few gold here or there - usually less.

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Right now, many of us are making decisions of what to purchase to make money in Cataclysm. These are 'punts' because we don't really know what will happen come the 7th of December. Educated guesses, but guesses all the same.

However, some of these are as close to risk free as is possible, because of a process similar to the vendor option outlined above, which I'll call "One Step Vendoring". All you need is a profession.

I've already mentioned this earlier this week. Netherweave Cloth vendors for 8s a piece. Therefore if you can buy netherweave cloth for less than 1g60s a stack, even if the Netherweave Bag market crashes come Cataclysm, you can vendor your cloth and cover your investment.

But by a simple processing of the cloth into Heavy Netherweave bandages (which vendor for 30s each) means that you can purchase stacks of Netherweave Cloth up to 3g and still be sure of covering your costs.

So providing Blizzard do not change the vendor price of either the cloth or the bandages then any time you see stacks at 3g or less you should buy them.

This is true from a whole range of items currently on the AH for stupidly low prices. I'll give two examples (remember I hope that people want to do their own research and not get spoon fed):

Saronite Ore - vendor price 25s.

Saronite Bar - vendors for 1g25s

Therefore buying all Saronite Ore up to 62s50s is a risk free investment

Autumn's Glow/Forest Emerald/Monarch Topaz/Scarlet Ruby/Sky Sapphire/Twilight Opal - vendor price 3g

Any cut - vendors for 4g50s

Therefore buying all of the above gems under 4g50s is a risk free investment

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Now of course we all hope to make more than a few silver here or there on these items, but its always reassuring to know that if things don't pan out as we think they will, that the worst that can happen is that we get our money back. There aren't many investments in the real world (bar perhaps national savings bonds/premium bonds) that that say the same. Because the wow economy doesn't pay interest on gold stored in banks, these options do offer the opportunity to have your money stored somewhere risk free,  with a chance of being paid off big at sometime in the future.

You could just process and flick right now to increase your wealth, the result would be the same. But patches and expansions bring huge change and the upheaval will be reflected in the price of items. Its how we make money. So having a few stacks of things cant do any harm can it?

Unless of course Blizzard change the vendor prices on these items, then we are all buggered. ;-)