Well, i started to make trades on CS:GO about a year ago, over all the time, i spent something like 40$ on skins, and now my inventory worth more than 500$, i think thats a profit isn't?. So i think i can create a guide that will help all people who wants to start trading make some profit, or at least try it.There is basically 2 ways of make some profit, the first one is trading skins and/or items with other people, and the second one is buying items on market, and selling them for a higher value.This guide i will show you everything you need to know about "what can affect item prices" aswell as "what kind of item worth more or is easier to trade than others".

There is a couple of things that can really affect ur item price, this may include:

• Market VariationsThis is one of the most important thing, what really determines the item price base. Market value has a little variations on basically every single item. Ex: AWP | Pit Viper, this item price vary from something 3 to 4,5$. This will make you to have some profit, if you trade a item that is on its top price for one that is on its lower priceSome low price items (less than 20$) usually vary from 2~3$, while mid price (less than 50$) items may vary at 5-8$ difference. Items that worth more than 50$ easily shows a variation of 10$ or more. If you check every hour an item price, you easily know in about a day, whats is the variation price of that item, this way, if u see someone selling it for about 70-80% its normal value, may be a good idea to buy it and sell for a higher price, but have in mind that steam ever take 15% of all transactions to itself.
• CurrencyCurrency, is a important thing while trading, because some currency are stronger (and worth more) than others. A trade that may represent a big difference between values on some currencies, may be a really tiny difference in some another.Some currencies values: ? > € > $ > R$ > pубLets compare this 2 weapons: CZ | Fuschia FN and AK | Blue Laminate FN and its price according to each respective currency above.CZ | Fuschia FN: ?1.57 > 1.98€ > $2.67 > R$ 5.99 > 93.48 pубAK | Blue Laminate FN: ?1.39 > 1.75€ > $2.36 > R$ 5.30 > 82.62 pуб As you can see, in ? its just ?0.18 difference, while in pуб there is 10.86 pуб difference, which may be a important thing while trading.
• RarityRarity basically determines how much a weapon skin worth, some really great skins are Mil-spec rarity, and its cheap because its quite common to acquire them. Unlike AWP | Dragon Lore (????ing ugly overrated skin) that is a weapon skin that can ONLY be obtained through quests, which are limited per week and its also a Covert item... A normal Covert item that can "easily" be obtained through boxes, usually worth more than 50$, but that dragon lore... People open hundreds of thousands boxes over there, and eventually they'll get some Covert item, but dragon lore is unique, you can't complete its quests hundreds of times, thats why it "worth" a lot.The item rarity is described as following:White (Common) - Consumer gradeLight blue (Uncommon) - Industrial gradeDarker blue (Rare) - Mil-specPurple (Mythical) - RestrictedPinkish purple (Legendary) - ClassifiedRed (Ancient) - CovertGold (Exceedingly Rare) - ? (Melee Weapons) Light Brown (Discontinued) - Contraband
• ExteriorEach item on CS:GO have 5 different exterior qualities. And that increase/decrease their value, based on how much "new" the item is. Although item exterior does not get worst while you play, it is a crucial element during trade.In order there is the five conditions a item may have (except asiimov/others)Factory New > Minimal Wear > Field Tested > Well Worn > Battle ScarredComparisonFactory NewMinimal WearField TestedWell WornBattle ScarredQ: Why some items bs cost more than mw ones?A: As i said before rarity is one of the factors, some items like Desert Eagle | Heirloom its pretty hard to get a well worn one, while ft and fn are very much common thats why ww is selling higher than ft, but that doesnt mean that it worth more...
• PatternPattern is a variation of same weapon on same exterior with a bit of randomness, some items like AK | Fire Serpent or P90 | Emerald Dragon have unique patterns, which means that all weapons are identical. Otherwise, skins like Slaughter, Case Hardened, Kami, Darude -Sandstorm, Fade and some others have different patterns. That may raise a lot or even double a item price.Pattern is a complex system created by valve, and i'll not explain with details here, but there is a guide that fR1ZZOh made that can help you to understand how it works.http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=247406953
• DemandDemand, determines how much people is looking for some weapon/skin, in other terms, the more people are looking for some skin, its price tends to raise, in the other side we have, less people looking/buying some kind of weapon/skin, its price tends to decrease.The only exception is when a new collection is out, because when it happens, there is almost no skins on market to sell, so we have a very high demand, but there is almost no offer. But as time passes, more skins from new collection is obtained and the price will decreasing until gets stable.So if you want to have any skins from a new collection, my hint is, wait at least 3 months to get it, otherwise you will lost money.There is a webside called csgozone where you can see which skins of each weapon people are rating.The more cool a skin is, higher is its demand, which do make it stays at higher values. That introduces you into our next topic that is:

As we saw above, demand can affect how much a item worth, and also determines if a item is easier or harder to trade. Now we are going to see which weapons are most easy to trade.With exception of knives, the most popular weapon is:

1. AWP
2. AK-47
3. M4A4/M4A1-S
4. P90 and Desert Eagle
5. Other rifles except SSG
6. P250, USP-S, Glock-18 and CZ75-Auto
7. Shotguns except XM1014
8. SSG-08 and Five-Seven
9. PP-Bizon and Negev
10. Other SMG's, Pistols and M249

About which skin is more popular than other, you can check csgozone to try to figure it out.Now going into knives. There is 13 skins (including vanilla) for all the 7 types of knives, and they're split into Low Mid and High tier there is skins and types of knife for each tier.Basically demand is based on weapon exterior, so the most wanted exteriors are: FN > MW > FT > WW > BS. The only exception is that some knives is really "rare", like well worn and battle scarred ones, these exteriors are much rare, and some times you will see a WW knife that "worth" (at least people are trying to sell for) more than a FT one of the same skin on same knife.Based on this we have a different demand for knives, as following:

1. Field Tested
2. Factory New
3. Minimal Wear
4. Battle Scarred
5. Well Worn

Q: Why battle scarred has more demand then well worn?A: Cause some BS weapons looks like "vanilla", and it may make it worth more than buying a WW one.Q: Why FT weapons has more demand than FN?A: there is a big difference between prices and you can find some FT knife with a great look, also there is much more FT knives than FN ones in-game.Broadly you should avoid these exteriors, due to it low demand: Minimal Wear > Battle Scarred > Well Worn. If i could give you a advice, never trade for WW and BS knifes, with the exception of "vanilla" ones, and avoid MW as much as you can, cause they're really hard to trade.Based on each knife type, these are the most popular knives:

1. Karambit
2. Butterfly Knife
3. M9 Bayonet
4. Bayonet
5. Huntsman Knife
6. Flip Knife
7. Gut Knife

And for skins we have:

1. Fade and Slaughter
2. Crimson Web
3. Night, Case Hardened and Vanilla
4. Stained and Blue Steel
5. Forest DDPAT and Boreal Forest
6. Scorched, Safari Mesh and Urban Masked

Some knives skins have same visual on different exteriors, skins like Stained, Blue Steel and Case Hardened will have same versions in different conditions, the only difference is that the skin gets darker with more close to BS it is.In this section you learned that trade a ak-47 for a equivalent price pp-bizon may be not a good choice, cause ak is much easier to trade than bizon. Sometimes, not even a overpay worth it. You must have the knowledge to make your trades in order to profit.

Another way you can boost up you inventory value, is doing some investments. There is some kind of items that doesn't drop anymore, or is from a case that have a really low rate of drop, this way items like Glock | Fade, Deagle | Blaze, AK | Fire Serpent, AWP | Boom, P90 | Emerald Dragon, AWP | Graphite and others, still raising its price, because they're nearly unobtainable. This way, may be a good idea to buy one of these items.Another kind of investment you can try is, buy some cases when its really cheap, then just hold it, until its price raise, and sell on market for a higher value, if you buy 100 cases for .10$ then sell it after a month for .50$ you will have 50$ in only 1 month. You just need to follow the market and keep alert on prices to know what and when you have to buy something.

Now that you know which weapons you should trade, lets talk about how to trade it. May you don't know but there is a limit that you can have on your steam wallet, based on this, people usually use keys to trade items. Keys is the most common "currency" that people trade on market, each key worth 2,5$ and can be stocked without limits on your inventory. Actually there is 6 case keys and 2 capsule keys, the most important thing is, people will ever try to sell by 2 keys a item that costs 4$, and other people's will try to buy that same item for 1 key. There is another opportunity to profit, we will find some people "quick selling" their items for about 70-80% of market price in keys, so a item that costs 10 keys, some people sells for 7-8, and if you buy it, with some patience you can get 9-10 keys from someone else and profit! Here is a hint, when you want to buy something, get your money and buy keys. That will make you buy the item you want for less than its price.Using keys, you usually do "not fair" trades, which will probably gives you some advantage. You can easily give less keys for a item, but you will never get more keys than it really worth, a item that worth 26$, you will never trade it for 11 keys (except if is rare pattern).

If you really want to start trading and make some profit you need to have Patience, that's the key of trading. If you are in rush to trade some item, you may do a trade that doesn't benefits you, and that will slow down your progress. So take your time, follow market prices, try to figure which weapons/skins people are looking for, and use this knowledge advantage to make profit.You'll need to spend some hours of your day, looking for people who wants your weapon, or looking for people who have the weapon you want, it will take a long time. But remember, money calls money, which means that when you start, you will make some "insignificant" trades, but having a profit of .10$ is enough, since when you will have something like 100$, you can make cycles with 10$ or more profit.Doing trades is a art, some people know how to do it, and some people don't, i'm teaching you how to do it. I hope you like it, and don't forget to rate it so i can keep working on guides like this.

Special thanks to fR1ZZOh who contributed with some essential information for this guide.This whole guide was write based on my own trade experience, there is no absolute true over here.I'm from Brazil, if you find some mistake/misspelling or have something to help me with grammar i would love to fix it.Here is a link for my 2 profiles if you want to check my inventory:PaulixKronitaxyanAlso if you made some profit and want to donate me something, here is my steam offer link:http://steamcommunity.com/tradeoffer/new/?partner=27685143&token=WzpwE-K8