Stocks

I had a discussion recently with a gentleman at a local card show about the stock market and trading cards.

He insisted, since he was a stockbroker by trade, that he had a better grasp on the trading card market than most, and that the same rules apply to both markets.

I am not, by trade, a stockbroker.

My grandma once bought me a few mutual fund shares when I graduated from high school, which I subsequently cashed in during college to likely pay for pizza and a date with my girlfriend.

Nonetheless, I am no Wall Street wizard, to put it mildly.

So we went back and forth for a bit, with a few comments tossed in from those on the other side of the showcases.

He insisted the markets' highs and lows are in line with what he sees everyday on the exchanges. He insisted these trends are predictable as well, which is where he really lost me.

He explained how, like publicly-traded companies, these cards are subject to scrutiny by investors, in the same way player stats are scrutinized by collectors, and that market value is determined by this scrutiny.

I asked him how leadership of companies plays into the value, and how that relates to sportscards.

“A bad CEO can ruin a company's value, righty?” I asked.

“It can,” he said. “Quickly, too.”

“Then who is the CEO of Mike Trout?” I said.

“The manager, the GM, the ownership of the team,” he explained. “They all can influence a player’s performance on the field, which impacts market value. Same concept applies to these traded companies. ”

Okay, I’ll admit, I was starting to see the point here, although I do think the trading card market as a whole is a lot more volatile.

“I always tell people to read up on stock trading, learn how the basics work because you can apply a lot of it to trading card markets,” he said. “Knowledge is power.

It is indeed.