HOWTO make $200,000 off of the above-inflation USPS postage hike

Cory Doctorow 3:23 pm Tue Oct 1, 2013

The USPS is planning a rare, above-inflation postage stamp price-hike on Jan 26, 2014; and they're also selling "forever-stamps" that can be used at any time. Allison Schrager and Ritchie King show how these two facts in combination offer a significant arbitrage opportunity, and set out a plan to buy 10 million stamps at $0.46 and sell them at $0.48, netting $200,000 in profit, at 4.3 percent.

It's pretty thoroughly thought-through, with a detailed finance and distribution plan. I'd love to see them try it.

Our plan is to buy 10 million stamps at $0.46 each and sell them at $0.48. The margins, of course, are small. If we buy 10 million stamps, spending $4.6 million, we’ll earn $200,000—a 4.3% profit.

The good news is that you can buy up to 1 million stamps in a single order from the USPS, and pay a mere $1.75 in shipping (shipping is their business, after all).

A step-by-step guide to profiting off a 3-cent hike on US postage stamps [Allison Schrager and Ritchie King/Quartz]

(via JWZ)

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