Will this stock market madness affect cards?
 

We're been on a mighty run. To the point where I am not longer buying like I used to because things that "feel" like good buys are far in between. Those of us who have been here a while have seen it happen before, but what are your thoughts short and long term?

A little hard to notice the stock market effect with all the lawsuits flying around.

For the sake of humanity I hope nothing bad comes of the recent events.

We know if this market slide continues for more than a few months it'll trigger some bear market sentiments. Causing people to hold tight on spending.
It's just human nature right?

If we don't see a bounce back in the market i'm guessing a consistent yet flat trend in card prices. Probably some buying opportunities in between.

Luxury items and non essentials will see impacts first. So card prices should react +/- fairly quickly.

Yes. This stock market madness will affect the value of cards. If the stock market continues to struggle, the cost/value of (most) cards will go down. But just as the stock market will eventually go up, so will the value of (certain) cards. I believe if you buy the right cards and are “long” in them, you will do fine (maybe even well) over the longterm.

Put all of your slabbed cards into coronavirus surgical masks, and all will be fine eventually. :D

Does this work?

Last time around the card market lagged the stock market by about 9-12 months. I'd be cautious about buying any high-flying cards just now.

In December of 18 this was a hot topic and then the market went on a 41% run and it was never mentioned again.

There may be some correlation at the ultra high end but I don't believe it exists as much as many think for most cards. In my view employment trends are much more important as cash flow is king.

One of the reasons the card market is so hot is that many smaller time investors can enter the market with very limited funds and actually participate. Whether one likes Gary Vee or doesn't he signaled last year that the sneaker heads were going to take their fast cash and bring it to cards and they did and basketball cards have exploded. Not just doubling but moving higher by four fold and six fold and even more. Whether this is a sustainable trend is debatable but it has happened and the market is simply scorching hot. Every segment has gotten hot as of late and I think that many people use trading cards for investment purposes and since the barriers to entry are so low and there is action at every price point it attracts all kinds.

I have routinely said I have never gotten even close to investing in anything that on a percentage basis has kept pace with my wrestling cards and this is just a tiny niche part of the market and had one taken the same dollars and put them in Lebron, or Jordan, or some other mega star they too would have seen exponential returns. This appeal isn't going away.

If the market decline accurately predicts a longer term economic decline where jobs are lost and there is true distress in the economy than disposable income will decline and this will naturally affect cards. That said a selling stampede in a wildly overbought market would generally be viewed as just a sharp correction and the probabilities still suggest the economy is sound and therefore cards will be fine.

There has been tremendous headline risk in the card market in the past year and yet it has done nothing to slow it down and it has actually accelerated during these events and as I said when this first surfaced it wouldn't affect the market and it hasn't and won't.

There is tremendous enthusiasm for cards and with modern stars like Trout and Zion and established legends like Lebron, Brady, and Jeter seeing eye popping auction results the game is far from over.

There are many that despise the word investment when it comes to their beloved hobby where they opened nickel packs and put them in their bike spokes but for the overwhelming percentage of participants they won't simply keep throwing their hard earned money into a hobby where they lose money. There are countless collectors that have seen continued appreciation in their invested or allocated dollars and it makes it much easier to keep doing this. If a nice vacation is 5k for most you probably aren't excited to spend 5k on cards and watch them turn into 1k when you could have had a ton of fun using those resources. Instead they turned into 10k and you get to admire and cherish them and have pride of ownership.

I am bullish. I remain bullish as I have the entire time and baring a victory by someone who wants to fundamentally change our entire system we will all be fine I believe.

Good luck with your collecting or collecting/investing. I don't view either as bad.

Can I get Corona Virus from a card I bought on BST?

Depends on the seller. And if it was PSA graded.

This should cheer you up:

https://www.yahoo.com/news/stock-mar...220900734.html

:rolleyes:

Roubini was a one hit wonder. He has been wrong for 11 years in a row. Maybe he will get it right again but he has been spinning this same record the entire time.

Edit: Haha. I can't believe what I just read. He has lost it. By the way he is an eccentric guy with molds of vagina's in his New York apartment. His presidential prediction is based on hope and not reality.

No

Temporarily- unquestionably yes

GaryV
 

I think GaryV's assumption about "sneaker heads" entering the market is just that, and ASSumption. Sure, I bet he talked to a few bro's who are new to the new market but that's probably mostly anecdotal........ To extrapolate that an army of non-card guys are now buying big $ cards is more speculation than anything..... As for the market, yes, bad economic times results in greater supply and therefore lower prices. And of course lower demand as many buyers are not in the mood to stockpile their PC

You should read his Twitter. This isn't speculation. They worship him.

Well
 

Well, watch out. High end basketball card guy spending half a mill on an altered MJ insert will end up holding the bag, charlatans like GaryV come and go, in a few years he will be a footnote in the hobby

The basketball card market has gone nuts. I am not just talking about these inserts that have gone for huge money. Gary proclaimed on his Twitter thread a year ago he was buying in bulk (100) PSA 10's of Giannis Antetokounmpo and they were $400. Now they are $1,600. Obviously the price is a moving target but it is up a ton. His followers are losing their minds and treating him like a card guru. He pointed out Lebron's that have gone from $1,000 to $6,000. Once again he is like a prophet to them.

I don't profess to know where this ends but it is all over the place. Look at Patrick Mahomes cards. I can't honestly say I would have had the foresight to buy his cards. They are up dramatically. This younger crowd is willing to role the dice and play the buy high and hope to sell higher later game.

When you have cards doing this it brings in buyers.

I am almost 41 and have been around the block with trading options. There is a new guy in my office that is 27 and he wants in. He reads on Reddit daily about the dudes gaming the system with Robinhood or someone else who risks it all on TSLA calls and it pans out. He wants in. You can play options with little money and either lose it all or kill it. Same thing with cards.

There was a thread on CU years ago where a guy was flipping his way to a 52 Mantle. He started with a small amount and did it. Stories like this keep people coming in to play the lottery.

The high end basketball card guy has an insane collection that includes a PSA 10 Aaron so I am not going to judge him. More power to him.

Video
 

Make sure your 27-year old friend watches this video before he buys in:

https://youtu.be/UM9WT-namdw

The tell tale factor will be the upcoming presidential election. Sure the virus has caused fear and uncertainty but it’s also one parties leading nominee whom has a lot of Wall Street Scared Sh+tless

He doesn't want into cards. Options on stocks.

Point was the pursuit of profits draws people in.

Why were there buyers of TSLA at over $900? Because it was up. Same thing drives a lot of the card market.

I am not a flipper. No reason to have nearly 30 Andre 82's so I don't fit the profile.

Just realize it exists.

Exactly Bingo Right Emotion Driven Momentum is extremely strong look at last week in the markets.

Doesn’t have to be REAL

What is fascinating is both sides are scared to death.

I was at a conference seven years ago and Chis Mathewson was the guest speaker. He made fun of all of us because he assumed as financial people we were all Republicans. He knows it is 90% or more so not a stretch. That said guys like him are petrified. Anyone with a first grade math education realizes no one wins.

There easily could be a bubble. That said it is hard to say. In 1985 Dwight Gooden was the card to have. There were over a million printed and it reached a trad able value of over $15. That is a market cap of over 15 million. With drastically less printed today these same cards will sell at a massive premium to this and probably have a similar market cap. Hard to know what happens. Hard to argue though with those who successfully forecasted stardom and put their money behind the cards.

I'm not sure this is true, the video I posted proves as much

Patrick. Most of these cards come out of packs in high grade. 10k plus might be 40% to 50% of the total supply. There are not a million plus of these cards printed.

ok
 

Ok, so point is there are going to be a lot more 10s of modern cards than 10s of 80s Darryl Stawberry or whomever--so how do higher supply 10s of modern cards hold the same value to 80s 10's that are much harder to hit? Also, the bottom 95% of total supply doesn't matter on cards like these ultimately it's only the top 5% and there will be drastically more 10s on modern than 80s to vintage

I am not.

In 1985 we didn't get cards graded. Kids just saw the value in Beckett and said this is what it is worth. Dealers in many cases too.

If there are 1 million printed and the card books for $15 it has a $15 million dollar market cap.

If today there are 30,000 printed and it books for $500 it has a $15 million dollar market cap. The lower supply simply allows for the cards to trade for more and of course we have inflation.

Long term no one knows what they are worth. That said a 1993 SP Jeter that has over 15,000 copies graded by PSA alone was worth $6,500 in a PSA 10 in 2009 when I got really active buying cards. There were countless people who said at $15,000 it was the most overvalued card in the hobby. At $24,000 it was insane. No way the $30,000 sale was real. You can't be serious it sold for $37,000. And on and on. Now close to $200,000. This stuff is hard to predict but one thing is true once a horse leaves the barn it is hard to get it back in.

I was made fun of for saying a Hogan PSA 9 was a great buy for $75. Today it is at least $5,000. I didn't know that then and believed it would go up a lot but was just lucky not to sell and keep buying various copies on the way up.

I know 2008 through 2011 or so was a time to pick up vintage cards cheap. Good possibility 2020 through ? will be the same way.

Brian

Valid
 

You make some valid points but I'm not sure where the 30,000 vs. 1 million assumption is coming from?

They under no circumstances print anywhere close to as many cards today. I made a guess of 30,000. It might be 50,000 but it certainly isn't a million. I am close to 41 and from the time I was in kindergarten into early middle school you could find packs of cards everywhere. Grocery stores, convenience stores, gift shops, card shops, card shows, and at baseball games. Good luck with this today. Just viewing the distribution channels it is easy to see the overall supply is drastically lower. I read at one point Topps had reduced production by 80% and that was years ago. Anyone trying to suggest the card production is similar to 1991 Topps is delusional. I don't assume you think that as that would be nuts.

Walmart
 

Walmart and Target? They carry tons of this product don't they? Pretty sure much more than 50K nationwide?

Since we are wandering down this hole, I believe the rough estimate for 2020 Topps series 1 is 250,000 not including factory sets.

Good info.

I did a little digging and the estimate for 1991 Topps is 3 to 5 million.

If baseball card production has gone up in recent years that is great and there are quite a few hobbyists that believe the card market will die out in the coming years due to lack of interest and perhaps this is a sign that future generations will remain interested.

The card manufactures figured out long ago that they couldn't produce as many and the focus obviously became on chase cards to move packs.

Also set building for modern cards is a thing of the past. They only want to high end insert numbered cards. Check out all the case breaks on eBay and break ninja it’s a total business and or gamble/speculative investment.

Many love the gambling aspect on Facebook as well with Razing of Graded Cards. It was super hot the past two years now it has died off drastically. People still do it but it’s not as hot as it was. Most Razzed cards from
What I’ve seen are not good lookin examples for their grades.

Stock market and values
 

The virus scare is fueling the stock market decline. If the infection seriously spreads in the U.S. that will spook people out I think. In that case, buying cards won't be a priority. Already I hear people are paying $200 for masks on Amazon.

It depends.

Who cares?
 

For actual collectors, what difference does it make? Decisions will continue to be made according to changing circumstances both in the marketplace and in one's personal financial situation. In other words, it will be, as ever, "collect what you like, can afford, and want to spend your money on." For some, it could be a great opportunity to pick up more stuff at better prices; for others, it might mean having to sell stuff to make up for losses or meet margin calls. For the hobby in aggregate, I don't think it will mean much, as I don't recall precipitous price drops or any kind of flooding of the market in previous financial and economic crises, more of a slowdown in activity and stall in prices for a year or two before a return to normalcy.

David:

I know Mike Sommer did an analysis after Topps did the million card rip early this month and he thought that was about 2 percent of the total print run of 2020 Series 1 Topps.

Assuming 25 percent of the cards were not base cards (which I think is correct in a Jumbo pack) that means approximately 2272 (we'll round down to 2250 for our purposes) of each base card was pulled.

If that really was 2 percent of the total run; that means 2250 X 50 is the amount of each base card produced (There are no SP's in basic Topps -- the SP's are considered parallels)

That means 112,500 or so of each base card was produced for 2020 S1. That number might actually be a bit low when you consider factory sets and more later so I'm going to add 10 percent and round

125K of each 2020 Series 1 base card was issued. Yes, no other set comes close to this print run but that's the best answer I can get.

And that's why just about base card will end up in your local card show dime box :)

Rich

And as for the stock market affecting card prices -- I think the person who said employment is more important that stock market -- I think that person is correct

Rich

I'm not sure I agree with this. Like you said, every area in the hobby is really hot right now. Your PSA 9 Hogan was under a hundred bucks at one time and now it's going for about five grand, right? I have also shipped so many vintage hockey cards to America. Americans want the rookies of Bobby Hull, Bobby Orr, Gordie Howe, etc. I think what happened is that baseball cards became so expensive, so collectors started putting their money into other sports.

Nice to see you posting, btw.

I am not suggesting they are the sole cause for prices expanding. If I wasn't clear about this I apologize. What I am saying is the number market participants expanded and these sneaker heads are part of it. They are more speculators than collectors and you are seeing a lot of speculative activity.

I wasn't informed of this segment of collectibles but I have two clients with sons in college and it is all the rage. They are signing up for fresh released shoes on lists and then flipping them on Stock Ex for five times the price before they even own them. The fast money drives this crowd and obviously cards can exchange hands for more immediately.

My view is there is renewed interest in cards and it is spreading.

Cards / Market
 

If you have money to invest, I feel that high end real property (cards / memorabilia / gold / silver) is currently a better investment than the market.

Alright, got you.

I think these same folks are what is fueling the rise because they aren't afraid of the downside because they are so used to winning on these shoes.

Many collectors will simply pass on something once it was risen in their view too much. Wait for a dip.

These are momentum investors willing to buy because the price is expanding.

Honestly, I hope EVERYTHING takes a huge dump in price and the card hobby (not business) sees an overdue correction. Wouldn't it be nice to collect what you like without worrying about what a card market downturn will do to your collections value? Holy crap, it's only frigging card board... someone should start a thread called "when it was a hobby".

Nowadays if you wait a day or two the stock market will change quite a bit. I think it does affect prices somewhat.

Yes it will.

I'm mostly a vintage collector but I always keep my eyes and ears open to the modern card collecting/investing market. It helps me understand the psychology behind what's driving the overall card sales.

It appears the market is as hot as ever in March 2020.
This YouTube vlogger does statistical analysis on actual eBay sales data. Take a few minutes to watch this video and you'll see some of the card market activity which has been as good as 300% increases on certain cards.

How does it correlate to the current state of the stock market? I think people are pulling money out of stocks and parking the cash in cards. (something younger people would risk)

How does it correlate to the vintage card market? A lot of these collectors/investors graduate to older cards. It's the evolution of a collector.

What does it mean for most Net54 members? Not much. We are a usually frugal and a suspicious bunch who keeps our niche part of the market slow and steady.

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I don't know why anyone would take their money out of the market. Now is the time to buy.