THWC 446: Sell Everything Immediately!

What is up, everybody? Hobbit Cage Episode 446, brought to you by Arena Club by card ladder. Use code Cage. Save yourself a couple bucks. C, A, G, E in case you don't know how to spell Cage by now. And the Philly show a couple weeks away. Today's hat Acquire. The good folks at Acquire, they will help you acquire things. A good name. They do a lot more than that, but they help me acquire some things as well. All right, guys, I've unlocked it. I've unlocked the secret to success. It's leave you guys for a week and make you miss me and then put out quality content that has a title that's catchy. Some might say clickbaity. I don't know, people have said that in the, in the YouTube comments, but it sure has been working. I have three episodes this week that are my most watched YouTube episodes of the entire year. And we're gonna keep that momentum going. And it's funny, I look back on the, on the episodes that I've done over the last six and change years and as it will come as no surprise to everybody that the, you know, the most watched episodes or, you know, the, the weeks or months where we had the most watched episodes were the ones where everything was going great. So it really shouldn't be a surprise that the number of people watching the episodes or consuming the hobby content coincides with a month that we had in August where we sold. We had a monthly sales volume of $900 million in the hobby. A record by a long shot. The hobby is doing, you know, numbers that we've never seen before. You can say that that's not hyperbole. We've never seen numbers like this before in this space. And there's no reason to think that that is going to slow down. You look at ebay's quarterly reports and you know, they are now mentioning, you know, collectibles as a huge driver of their earnings. You know, I looked at their July numbers and July ebay alone sold nearly a half a billion dollars worth of card volume. If you look at card ladder stats from July, it was $453 million worth of eBay transactions in July alone. It's, it is amazing to see. And you know, we talked about the numbers yesterday, but I mean, you know, just take a look at, you know, a couple of card letter charts, right? I mean, there was one day in August, August 16, which I think rea had an auction end that day, but it wasn't like a major auction day, but August 16th there was $65 million worth of card transaction volume in a day. It's insane. So why am I telling you to sell everything immediately? That's today's title. Sell it all. Sell, Mortimer, sell. Turn those Machines back. Well, one, because it's a catchy title and it'll get you to listen. But two, let me, let me break it down a little bit. I'll tell the story, I'll tell it through my own experience, right? Because I'm sure, like me, you have people who know you're involved in the hobby. They know that this is something that you do and they're not, but they want to be or they dip their toes in. And you've gotten messages recently from them. I'll use my brother as an example. You know, he, he, he, he was buying Pokemon cards the last boom and you know, bought the cards and then the value of them went down and now they're going back up and, you know, he has the cards. You have a friend who is in the same situation, bought LeBron's, right? I have a friend who, who bought Tom Brady cards when they were going up last time and held them. And during the last couple of years, it was, man, I shouldn't have bought these things. I should have sold them when they went up. You know, I could have made a little profit and man, I'm stuck. But now the card that they bought for $5,000 is worth 20. And the text isn't, oh man, I should have sold, it's, oh, man, I should have bought more. When you told me to buy them at 5. Oh, I had, I had money then. I should have bought 10 of these. I would be in such great shape. All right, well, let's peel that back a little bit. That's human nature. That's the psychology of what happens when markets ebb and flow. And it's funny to watch, right, because we are sitting here dealing with positives, negatives, hot markets, cold markets. And this is just my own experience over text, my own involvement with the people who I deal with. It's interesting to watch that when prices are up, people are looking to buy more. And when prices are down, people are looking to sell mad that they didn't sell before. And yet you rarely hear anyone, anyone say, you know what? I'm going to learn from the last time, I'm gonna learn from that two year, three year period of Downtown where I was sitting there with this card saying to myself, I wish I would have sold this earlier. Well, now's that time. Now's the time where you're in profit. I'm not telling you that in a year or two or six months that the card that is now worth 20 grand that you paid five for is going to go back down to four or six or ten. I don't know what's going to happen to each individual card. But it's funny that no one is talking about, oh, let me, you know, let me, let me, let me learn from that. No, everybody gets bold. I guess it's because everybody has more money because they're making profit and they're selling their cards in there. They all have more money to spend. Whereas when there was a dip and you Goldin get that liquidity and you Goldin sell your cards, you know, there wasn't all this money. It is a fun thing to watch human nature. And I do not begrudge anyone who says, I'm going to sell my card now. I'm going to sell this. I'm going to take profit. And maybe I don't get the top of the market, maybe I miss out on the next 10, 15, or 20% run, but I'm locking in my profits selling this card now, and I'm not going to have to worry about when the crash happens, when the Downtown happens, when the correction happens. Maybe I don't maximize it to the Velocity extent and maybe I leave a little bit of money on the table selling now, but I'm not gonna find myself in a year or two saying, Yu-Gi-Oh I really wish I would have sold that. There's nothing wrong with that. Now, a quick aside to the very many of you listening and watching to this who say, I don't even care about any of this. I just buy my cards. I like my cards. Great. You've been up and down in this ride a bunch of times and you guys are probably ones who will say this. Another fun little topic. I don't care if there's a Downtown I welcome that Downtown Because when there's a Downtown car prices go down and then I can finally buy what I want. Okay, I've heard that from probably 50 people in the last six months when having the conversation about where the market is now, is it in a good place, is it in a bad place? And everybody says the same thing. I don't listen, a Downtown would be great for me. I'll. I'll be ready to scoop in and buy everything then. Okay, now be honest with yourself. How many of you who are saying that now scooped in in 2023 and actually bought stuff, there's probably a few of you, not a lot. And here's why. Because we think we individually are going to be in the same fiscal position we are in right now in six months or a year when that Downtown comes. But guess what? We probably one-of-one be. Because what's going to cause that Downtown Who the hell knows? First of all, who knows if there's even going to be a Downtown But assuming there is, what caused it? Maybe it's an overall economic shift, maybe the Strait of Hormuz gets closed again, who the hell knows? But if the market is down and your 401k is down, your company stock is down, your retirement funds are down, and there's not as much liquidity in cards where you can just buy and sell, well, guess what? That Downtown may come at a time where you personally find it harder to deploy your money. That's what happened last time. If you're being honest with yourself, that's what happened last time as well. Not many people are as flush with cash because if they were, guess what? There wouldn't have been a Downtown So you got to think about that for a second. My dad used to say, you know, flying high and riding low are interesting scenarios. When you are. When you are riding high and everything's going well, it's very hard to imagine it going bad. And the same thing happens when it's going bad. You just think it's always going to be bad. And it's hard to imagine things picking up and turning out and, you know, getting better. Well, here we are riding high. We just came off of the highest month ever. And it's all right for folks to be a little blinded by that. It's just what happens. It's human nature. When we look out at what next month or two months are going to bring, we think, well, why can't it go up? We just had a $900 million month, why not a billion dollar month? And guess what? That could very easily happen. Very easily happen. But if it doesn't, the part of the equation that people fail to factor in is that you will not have the same money, the same liquidity, the same flexibility. When everything turns as you do now, it's very hard to sell now when everything's good. And keep that money on the sidelines until there's a Downtown Because here's the third point. Everybody who texts me, everybody who messages me, everyone who DMs, me who says, hey, I got this offer, it's so much more than I paid. I think I'm going to take it. And I say, Yu-Gi-Oh go ahead and take it. Do you know what their next question is? Invariably the next question, well, what do I do with it? Then the money burns a hole in your Beckett Why? Because everybody is fearful of missing out on the next big run because they go on Instagram and they've just sold their LeBron card that they paid five grand for. They sold it for 25, and they say, Yu-Gi-Oh I just 5x my money. I didn't do that in the stock market. I didn't do that in the 401k. I didn't. Haven't done that in anything. You know, I'm right. I'm pounding my chest. I'm a genius here. I have. I'm doing better than, you know, than the guys on Wall Street. I just made five times my money buying a LeBron card. Do they put that money in a money market or a stock account because they think there's a potential Downtown and they'll buy that dip and be able to deploy that $25,000 in to better things at a better price when the dip happens, like all you Genesis out there, myself included, like to say we're gonna do. No. They go on Instagram and they see Jeff Wilson talking about grading vinyl records being the next big thing. Or Marvel cards. Oh, this is the big thing. This is the next thing. And because you're so flush with cash and because you just one-of-one and because it feels good to be right and it feels good to make this money, you don't hold it, you deploy it. You want to know what to put into next. What's the next big thing? What's the next thing that's going to get Hyper What's the next thing I can 5x my money on? Because I turned 5 into 25. Let's turn that 25 into 125. I call it human nature. Some may call it greed. And you know what? Sometimes greed's a good thing. Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't. And part of the stuff that I try to talk to you about on here is kind of knowing who you are and what you're doing and why you're here. Because I know a lot of you who send me DMs. You're not here because you want to own a Ken Griffey card. You're here because you think you can buy something for a price and sell it for more and that you could make some money here. And maybe buy yourself some freedom. Maybe get out of your 9 to 5 grind. Maybe be able to pay for a vacation here and there. Well, if that's the case, Sell Everything Immediately is the title of today's episode. I would never give financial advice. And you guys know I have plenty of cards. I'm not selling, you know, a bunch of cards. You look at my page, I have a ton of cards and I'm buying more. So, I mean, I am part of this human nature psychology experiment that I'm talking about in this episode here. Myself, I sell cards and I put that money right back in, right here at the top. I'm paying record prices for cards almost every day. I'm buying cards right now that have never sold for as much as what I'm paying them for them. And that may turn out poorly for me, but I know who I am and it's. I am taking a chance on some stuff. And if it doesn't work out, I'm still going to be here in five years. And the stuff that I'm buying, while it may go down, I think over the long haul will be just fine. And if that's you, then don't sell everything immediately. But if you're somebody who bought in, who rode this out, and you know, yourself, and in 2022 and 2023, when it was down, you were beating yourself up. You wished you had money. You wish you hadn't bought those cards. You wish you took profit when you did. Maybe you take a look at what you have. Maybe, maybe, you know, maybe trim some of the profits. I'm not saying sell it all. I mean, I guess I am. The title is Sell Everything Immediately, but this was a backhanded way of telling you that we got to do an episode about the audit. Mean, you guys have been through these. I try to do one every quarter. I try to be as positive as I can on here. And, you know, I really have been. I think Fanatics is doing a great job with a lot of the stuff they're doing. I think the, you know, the innovation that's in the space is amazing. I think that we are going to see, you know, a hot market continue, but there are a lot of things that could derail that that are out of all of our control, out of Fanatics control, you know, and, you know, more often than not, when you see charts kind of do this, there are pullbacks. What I would suggest to you, as someone who's watching and listening here, is don't wait for that pullback to figure out who you are. Because after it happens, it might be too late for you to decide to sell. It might be too late for you to decide to, like, hey, I really just want to take profit. If you decide that now, when everybody has money and the market's going good, you might actually be able to take your profit off the table and make a move now instead of in six months regretting that you didn't. And that's it. That's. I mean, it's a different kind of episode today. You know, it's. I got a bunch of texts. I talked to my brother. I talked to, you know, talk to a couple of friends, you know, hobby people I used to work with, you know, people at a former job who knew I was involved in the space and bought some cards and then, you know, they were down and, you know, now they're back up. And, I mean, I'm sure this is a conversation that a lot of people are having with a lot of people. So I figured I'd share it with you guys because, you know, that's what I do. So I apologize for the. Sell everything immediately. I'm not selling anything right now. So, you know, keep that as your. As you say. But you might want to. You might want to take a look at what you have. You might want to take a look in the mirror. You might want to think about if you were here last time, how you felt when it was down, and maybe try to avoid that if and when it happens again. And if you weren't here for the last kind of peak and valley, maybe watch some content about that stuff. I mean, you could. Look, I haven't had a bad review on Apple in a while, although now I'm sure people are going to go do it. But I mean, back in 2023, people were commenting how, Yu-Gi-Oh this really turned dark. This really became negative. This really blah, blah, blah. It wasn't about being negative. You know, I try to give a pulse of what's actually going on in the space. And when the market turned, you could see people weren't rah, rah, cheerleading. People weren't having as much fun, and they definitely weren't talking about you putting your next dollar into vinyl grading anymore. So hope you guys enjoyed this one. A little bit of a different one. Hobby with cage 4:46. Sell everything immediately. Brought to you by Arena Club. Buy card ladder. Use code cage and save yourself a couple bucks. And by the Philly Show. Talk to you soon, guys.