Yup but if the “tide goes out to sea” so to speak then that flipper is going to have a lot of cards coming back way below what their expected selling point is. So they’ll end up having to hold on to the cards for quite a while until prices return to the previous highs. If they’re willing to wait then they might be fine. The impression I get is certain people are going to overextend themselves and be forced to sell.
I’ve searched on ebay and seen quite a few raw cards going for much higher than usual. Raw cards going for close to PSA 9 price and based on the pictures, my impression is that card won’t get a 10, maybe a 9 if they’re lucky but more likely a 7 or 8. So that would be a net loss for that buyer if they’re planning on grading to sell.
I think its helpful to divide sales into categories. There are PSA 8/9 collectors and then there are PSA 10 elite collectors.
Set cards in PSA 9 and PSA 8 are certainly increasing due to Covid. The extra savings of staying at home (if steadily employed) correlates to the extra cha ching spent on Pokemon.
I don’t think Covid is driving the cards into the thousands, like PSA 10 set cards. I don’t know the peeps who buy these cards, but I imagine they just competing for cards as usual. Maybe they’re hurting due to the economy. Idk.
1st edition base straddles the fence. It was due for an increase, but a little extra money from sitting at home helps.
It could just be that we’re dancing around semantics/definitions. I think the people who might find themselves in a bad spot from overextending aren’t really the flippers. They’re amateur psuedo-collectors taking a gamble off a small-scale buy-in, in hopes to make a quick buck shortly down the road.
Flippers like cardrush.inc are buying shitloads of packfresh inventory, sticking it in a warehouse for 2 years while they’re unloading other inventory that’s been sitting in the warehouse for years prior. They’re winning regardless of those cards hitting an 8, 9, or 10.
These flippers, and even those psuedo-collector gambler types are usually out to make 2, 3, 5, 10, 20, 100 times profit from what they’re buying at and that gives them ample time to sell a little lower than expected (or bail out at cost) rather than taking a loss.
Bringing this back to the original topic though, because I don’t want to derail the intention of this thread; there are several key factors to the price increases and some will go away, others wont. What will go away? People will have spent their freebie covid money from daddy government. People will be spending money on other activities such as travel, restaurants, movies, malls, shopping in general once more activities and places of business open their doors when their states/cities allow them. That money dries up, or gets diverted away from pokemon, and what happens? The demand goes down to where pricing has to be more competative/drop as more inventory becomes available.
That said, I think the demand will still stay higher than it was prior to covid. Why? Even with money being diverted elsewhere after this shit ends. Even when people run out of their covid pocketmoney. Even with some people who jumped into the hobby for a bit, diving right back out…There will still be more new collectors collecting than there were previously. I think values will retrace a bit, but still remain higher than they were.
It was range bound for a lot longer than that. You are looking at too small of a time frame. I’ve highlighted the examples.
Normally for a breakout of this strength, it is in reaction to some outside forces, news, etc. As you know, we had covid.
Organic growth doesn’t typically burst without various test points. Usually in the form of ranges that become reference points have already been tested.
They are referred to as areas of support and resistance and are positions where markets looks at prices logically to make determinations.
We didn’t see that, we saw panic buying where people jumped on the FOMO ship and exactly like what was happening with toilet paper and other groceries, people were buying whatever they could and at whatever price it took.
Anyway. You can see we pushed right through the next test range without blinking and well beyond, in both terms of volume and total values. Be warned, the words “panic buying” are used and may trigger some people.
@enlightenedbulbasaur There may have been pockets of the market that were hotter than others, but that is to be expected in all markets. This data reflects the respective culmination of the PSA graded market. So clearly other sets weren’t so hot. Wall Street can have a bad day for example, but many individual stocks can return positive results on the same day.
This is not directed at anyone in particular, but I’m getting a sense that many people here would prefer I didn’t share any information or challenge particular lines of thinking. So I will be largely keeping to myself on market commentary from now on.
I think many people here don’t realise that I, too, am one of the heavier invested amongst us. In terms of both collection and speculative investments, both of which have done quite well for me over time.
I’m not worried about the long term.
Look, whether you agree or disagree with my observations and subsequent discussions, it’s up to you; in the end that’s all they are. Not fervent predictions, not financial advice, just my personal observations.
Rainbow is definitely one of the sharpest collectors I’ve come across on this forum, on point / objective / data-driven for almost every post
Unfortunately, he/she just couldn’t deal with the less thoughtful (no offence) counter-arguments and decided to ragequit
Probably has his/her own social/work circle of pretty smart people and isn’t used to dealing with a diverse quality of arguments (again, no offence). Must be young.
nvm, if it was offensive so be it, just my 2c hahahahahaha
Hope the guy comes back some years down the road with more equanimity then
Not sure who he was even arguing with but he loses any argument by default for having tissuepaper skin and ragequitting. I liked reading his comments, he reminded me of xellox.
well a lot of smart people limit how far they go in life due to tissuepaper skin
they often have big egos and feel like they need to win every counter-argument…as they spent their entire school life excelling and never getting criticized. then they discover this forum and realize they can’t out-argue every single person hahaha…and tap out from exhaustion. his posts are pretty time consuming to prepare as most have noticed already, with lots of illustrations etc.
when you’re spending half an hour crafting each post and the other guy keeps shooting you down with 1 min posts…you’ll flip too right? although that’s kinda his own fault hahahahahaha
the better strategy would have been to ignore the guy and move on or just don’t waste so much time crafting perfect posts…type a few bullets on your main points shoot it out
look at me, disorganized af and happy. that’s how i cope here. i get a little smarter about the hobby as i stay around here longer.
I agree w some of his points and analysis but you can’t drawn too many comparisons between the way the stock market acts and the way he thinks the Pokémon market should act based on a couple years of incomplete data. Also, a lot of sets were spiking up before corona like fossil & jungle, rocket & gym sets, some neo sets etc. In my opinion, the virus was more of a contributing factor that added fuel to this movement rather than the being the catalyst itself. Based on the fact that a lot of sets were already spiking up before corona and 10s were becoming more and more scarce and expensive, it’s not surprising that 9s especially made a strong move up across pretty much all WOTC sets.
That’s really a ragequitting? Honestly, I don’t see too much rage… I found this thread in the afternoon and thought the discussion is interesting, by the time I check back, op is gone, lol.
It’s not a rage quit. As restrictions ease I have many other things to attend to. My time is valuable and I’ve been spending far too much time inserting myself into conversations – that’s my fault.
I will admit, I was hoping for a higher calibre or conversation to coincide with my love for the hobby. Though I wasn’t aware of how financially illiterate the majority in this hobby is.
All I seem to be met with is responses of “no, you”, and people putting their fingers in their ears when you try to make valid points.
Look, I have no ill will towards anyone here. Do what you do, and enjoy it. If you want, I will leave this account here, but I don’t intend on joining any ongoing market commentary.
I shouldn’t have checked the opened tab on my phone out of habit. But yes, I saw the response, re-registered and am now posting this. No drama.
Looks like a technical analyst’s take. It’s a lot of confusion for most people. For those that have been in the industry for awhile, it’s a lot of noise, is what I take. The high level data warriors are not necessary, as much as the coders would like to believe. This elitist forum has a lot of folks that don’t like people that are different. Lol calm it down guys. Its Pokemon.
When coders Vs Tech Analyst goes wrong in the poke forums.
Non analyst but business men jump in talking all sorts of additional noise.
I was just baiting to see if you’d re-register and comment bruh. You will never get 100% of people to agree with you all the time, especially in a forum setting. You can be 1000% right about something and still “lose” an argument, so its best to just give your opinion and move on. You won’t get frustrated that way or turn people off with comments about how valuable your time is, how much money youve sunk in the hobby, and other egocentric comments to establish credibility.
“Hey, Glumface, next time there’s a rainbow look up! You’ll feel better and you might see me too.” - Rainbow Brite
