Runescape: Advanced Technique - Investment

Always use the Runescape forums when investing! It saves you time and you can get the best idea of current market prices with the forums. Also, if an item you invested in is decreasing in price, sell it immediately. Don’t wait to see if the price will rise, as the price of the item will most likely crash.

Holiday Drops
Holiday Drops are extremely rare items that were given away in the early days of Runescape. Many of the drops, such as Party Hats, have soared up to the hundred millions. Other items, such as Santa Hats, are some of the best investment items out there. The more holiday items you buy, the better.

Years ago, Santa Hats sold for only 500k each. Now, they are in the millions. The prices of holiday items will never decrease in the long run (although they might decrease over the period of a few days, on average the prices are always rising), and will continue to increase in the future.
The prices of these holiday items increase because they are slowly disappearing. As time passes, they may be lost, dropped, or banned from the Runescape economy. When Runescape banned a large amount of players at one point, the price of Blue Partyhats almost instantly increased from 20 million to over 100 million! As soon as you can safely buy a holiday drop item, take advantage of the situation and buy one!

Other Items To Look Out For
Remember, items can suddenly drop and rise in price. Abyssal Whips are in high demand among the Runescape Members economy, and they're one of the best items to invest in. Always check the market and look for any SUDDEN DROPS in market price. Then, all you have to do is buy as many as you can while the whips are low in price. When the price rises again, sell the whips. It's possible to make millions of gold at a time using this technique.
Sudden drops in price are caused by desperate sellers - many sellers are trying to sell their whips, which causes the price of whips to go down. This is the time to buy whips and invest in them. When the market recovers and the price of whips goes up again, you can sell the whips for a hefty profit.
The same investment technique can be used for Barrows armor, Dragon armor, and other extremely expensive and high demand items - keep track of the current average price of many rare items, and look out for any sudden drops.
Although Abyssal Whips and other non-holiday items can suddenly jump up and down in price, they are (on average) gradually lowering in price. Do not keep armor or weapons for longer than about a month, because they will have dropped in price significantly by then. Check prices often to make sure you're not losing money.
Remember - buy LOW and sell HIGH! And always keep an eye on the forums for the most CURRENT prices.

Be careful with investing. As I've said before, investment has its risks. At first, Use only about half your money to invest, just in case you lose it. If the price of an item lowers slightly, sell it immediately, because there's a potential risk of a price crash.

On average, you can make up to 1 million gold in 30 minutes by investing in items, however, making this much gold requires you to have lots of cash beforehand. Remember, practice makes perfect, so the more you invest, the faster you'll be able to make gold. You'll learn to keep track of prices of multiple items at a time and buy fast when a price drop does happen.

Be creative when you're investing – always be on the lookout for other good items to invest in. If you're the first person to find something to invest in, you're going to be the first person to make money out of it!
Useful Items to Invest In:
- All tradable holiday drops: These are rising in price rapidly, so it's always a good idea to buy holiday drops to invest in.
- Barrows Armor and weapons: When investing, try to invest full sets of barrows.
- Dragon Armor: Prone to have sudden drops in price and such. Beware, though, newly released weapons and armor with a high price tag (such as what happened with the Dragon Full Helm when it was released) will always drop in price.
- Trade Items (such as runes, food, ores, logs, etc.): When the demand for a particular trade item is likely to rise, buy a lot of the item.
- High level weapons (such as Abyssal Whips): High level weapons are always in high demand, and are prone to sudden price drops.
- Other extremely high demand items: Keep a lookout!
As you gain more gold, you will be able to make more and more cash at a time. Once you have at least 20 million gold from investing, try investing in more items at a time (for example, instead of buying one Abyssal whip every time the price drops, buy three). This will make you significantly more money from each haul than buying and selling items individually.
Also, you can take advantage of Runescape updates when investing. If a particular update makes use of a certain trade item, then you can be sure that demand for it will increase. Buy lots of that particular item right after the update, and sell your goods when the demand and price becomes higher.