You can accept that capitalism frequently rewards moral shortcomings without losing your own morals or empathy.

Unless you pull the levers that make the immoral decisions, you're going to live through it whether you're buying into that particular system or not. The stock isn't going to sit around in a pool of "unsold"...someone will hold it.

Celebrating people's pain while also celebrating the gains aren't always tied together. For some people it is a sick bonus, though.

Not really talking about morals or empathy. Just can't divorce spending significant amounts of income on collectibles from the rest of my life obligations. My hobbying don't happen in a vacuum, disconnected from all the other shit going on in my life.

In praise of portfolio diversification, I wonder how one Elon Musk feels about watching his precious Tesla stock crater, losing billions in the process. Gee, maybe now he is only the second richest man on the planet. Stuff happens, Elon.

Leon, I promise this is financial and not political.

Other investments -- Twitter and Space X -- are equal shitshows.

Just realized that Elon and Leon are anagrams,

but then again so are Tesla and least.

TSLA is up 17,000 percent since it went public. Elon will be OK.

I listened to a vintage card podcast with guest Joe Orlando. Long story short, because of the emotional attachment (which is different than other investments), he feels nice vintage cards would be relatively safe during economic downturns.

And steal.

And of course nobody ever promised us that life was going to be a bowl of cherries. Certainly not our parents.

Moreover nobody ever promised us that stocks had to go up all the time. My initial awareness/experience of the stock market came during the very bumpy markets of 1969-81 so I never developed the expectation that stocks were the road to riches. As I used to say to clients "Well sometimes they go up, sometimes they go down." Had it not been for my underlying ingrained skepticism, I wouldn't have missed out on so many (irrational) booms over the years.

:(

Yeah, and Daniel Bouland is pretty confident that no matter how bad things get people will still come in and buy his $80 hamburger.

They laughed at Shake Share in Madison Square Park when burger were $10.....TEN!!!

actually its pretty easy, you buy an index fund like sp 500, SPY and hold and sell calls on it and you will outperfrom 95% of the 'expert funds'

Pardon the naivety, however what if you sell calls, and since stocks only go up, you stock gets called away?

Since you were willing to sell the stock at that price, you just buy it again. Since you pocketed the call premium already, you're still ahead in the game.

;)

Yes, I'm sure it's that easy.

Free money! Can't lose!!

Don’t take the “blood in the streets” comment, at least from me as, cavalier. My 401k is one thing, suffers like everyone else.

My other account generates cash each week from selling calls and or puts. That cash goes into monthly dividend paying ETF’s until I need the $ for life, or until there is a downturn in the market, and creates opportunistic buying opportunities. Or some cards!

I started trading like that years ago because I couldn’t afford child support and tuition on my salary (my X is a lawyer!). It was developed out of necessity from the tiny 401k that I got in the divorce.

Everyone has their own style and risk tolerance when running your own account. I bring in cash from people that are willing to gamble on things going up 5% in a week, while I hope they go up 4% and I pocket their $100 bill in the process. Repeat the next week. It took years of practice, working countless hours and continuously researching.

Thanks,
Bob

Absolutely mind blowing that 65% of the respondents so far in this thread think that people won't spend less when they have less money to spend.

I think most of the responses here are more about their personal plans, and less about what they think that others will do.

But even so, count me as skeptical that a big hit to the stock market wouldn't impact the average cardboard collector.

I suppose we can debate the line where the average collector starts to feel it, even subconsciously. At 5% maybe not. But as you inch your way up to 10% and beyond, at some point, it seems like there has to be some impact, even if it's merely subconscious and psychological and just causes you to be a little less carefree and unfettered when it comes to bidding like drunken sailors in every auction that comes your way.

Do we have any idea who this "average collector" is? What they earn, what they spend, what they buy, how much they have invested in the stock market, what their overall financial picture is? If we don't know, how can we make any generalizations?

By definition, they should be everyone that isn’t at the extremes of all of those elements. I guess I would also limit it to just the vintage cardboard world, as the modern world is a whole different bag o’hamsters.

If you want to throw out a band, then I could get behind the middle 50%, and throw out the top 25% and bottom 25%. If you’re feeling frisky, you could even widen your net a little. And obviously we’re primarily talking about Americans, with apologies to the collecting Canuks out there, and the smattering of collectors from further abroad.

If you sort of frame it around that fat piece in the middle in terms of invested assets and age and income level, it’s not that hard to sort of imagine in your mind’s eye what a decent slice of these average collectors have in terms of income and investments and investing horizon, etc.

-
I'm still waiting for the value of my NFT's I bought from Fanatics/Candy Digital to come roaring back.

Ba Dum Tss..
-

You seem to have a better sense of it than me. Can you put some ballpark numbers on what you're thinking?

There's so much more, too, like the type of collector they are.

I aim for nice looking "lower" grades of stuff that fits my personal taste (I'm a surface/clarity fan moreso than even centering). I don't own a single card worth 10K+ and I don't really have to think much about adding a card to my collection.

Some guys in my same savings/earnings realm aim much higher and their ability to build wealth and spend big are tied together much more than how I collect.

I'm on mobile and can't see the poll. But the title of the thread is about the stock market. Most people don't have less money to spend when the stock market is down. Most of us aren't living day to day on income from the stock market. I have the exact same money to spend when the market is up as when it's down.

I budget my card purchases with "fun" money since its a hobby for me. it's not tied to my investments/retirement funds or funds I set aside for everyday living expenses.

Also I fund what I want by selling what I don't want.

It works good for me.

Ricky Y

All right.

Let's start by positing that the average vintage collector is around 50 years old. We can argue about whether that's too low or too high, but I'm guessing it's not too far off the mean.

Here in the US, if you look at incomes for people who are that age, at the 75th percentile, you're at $112.5k, and at the 25th percentile, you're at $38k. Naturally, if you're in a high cost area, these numbers will shift up, and probably not by a little in some cases.

For the most part, you're looking at a 10-20 year investment horizon before they start drawing on their assets, although in some cases they might need those assets for upwards of 50 years. So not crazy conservative in their horizon.

In terms of retirement assets at that age, the stats I'm seeing suggest that the 75th percentile has about $300k invested, and the 25th percentile has about $1k invested. Obviously this is going to exclude things like your personal residence, etc, and just be focused on more traditional retirement assets. For those who are fortunate enough to have one, I can also strongly suspect that these stats don't include the value of a pension.

A bit of a caveat - I'm inclined to suspect that the venn diagram circles for the Average American and the Average Vintage Cardboard collector don't overlap perfectly, as we probably skew a bit more towards the top of the range rather than the bottom, simply because we have a nonzero amount of cash to blow on frivolities like old cardboard.

How do those stats strike you? Aside from the 25th percentile of Americans being totally hosed on their retirement savings (which might describe more of us than we're willing to admit), and my supposition that we skew a bit more towards the top of the range, I would guess that those stats are generally in the right ballpark for average.

And

Slate

Tales

I mean there's a lot of play in it, but what you say makes sense. So is someone in that range going to change their buying habits because of a bad month on Wall Street, do you think?

My turn to flip the question to you - how bad is bad for this bad month?

And perhaps even more important, what is the outlook going forward?

"Sometimes, bad is bad" - Huey Lewis

How bad was late 2008/early 2009? Bad, the end was near, but we're now at what 5x the low? How bad was early 2020? Bad, the end was near, people were panicking right and left, but we're now at what, 2+x the low? I think the outlook going forward, in the long run, is fine. Innovation and technology are unbelievable. Short term, sure, there could be a lot of noise.

If we're talking Oct/Nov 2008 bad, then it seems like most everyone would modify their spending habits for a while, at least until a lot of the uncertainty was over, and the outlook was looking up, and even then probably not until things were clearly back on track. If you're lower on the income/assets distribution, you modify out of necessity. If you're higher up on the distribution, you modify because of the psychological impact.

There are always exceptions to the rule, and I'm sure plenty will respond to proclaim that they ramped up their purchases of cardboard 10-fold in December 2008, and kept buying nonstop like drunken sailors for the next decade, and they now own a world-class collection because of their willingness to be greedy when everyone else was fearful. But I really doubt that was a common response.

Who knows. You could be right, maybe demand and prices will come down a bit. Might not be a bad thing.

It seems like most here are conflating the stock market with retirement portfolios. But that only makes up about half of the market allocation. A significant percentage of the value of the stock market is also used for annual compensation of the workforce. Especially in the tech space. Out here in Silicon Valley, RSUs, ESPPs, stock options, and annual bonuses often make up about half of an employee's total compensation (and sometimes significantly more). When the markets take a hit, people make less money. I just sold about 250 shares of company stock last month. Today, those shares are down about $100 per share compared to what they were at when I sold them. Had I waited another month, that would have resulted in me having $25k less to spend on cardboard, vacations, Hello Kitty toys for the daughter, and designer handbags for the wife.

When there is less money to go around, less money goes around. It's simple economics.

The poll asks about what individual people answering it will do so they presumably know their own financial situation better than you do. Not everyone on here may have as much dependence on the stock market as you apparently have.

Don’t forget the GI Joe with the Kung Fu grip.

Don’t mean to be flip, but regardless of your personal situation, wouldn’t you be an idiot not to take into consideration major stock market losses in any type of major purchase? Take real estate. Are you going to tell me that you aren’t going to factor into your purchase of a home the idea that many other people who may be potential purchasers may be pulling back their horns a little because of anxiety about falling stock values? Wouldn’t it be just dumb not to factor that into your thought process?

I would guess the percentage of collectors of whom a significant portion of their (non-retirement)income comes from the stock market is tiny and insignificant. It wouldn't move the needle on this poll. Most people just don't fall into that category.

All musings aside, there is a non-insignificant number of board users saying market conditions will influence or have a possibility of influencing their vintage purchases.

Roughly 1/3rd consider themselves exposed and 1/5th in danger.

Yep, just like there is a significant number who won't be affected. It's almost like everyone's situation is unique.

That’s definitely part of it.

I think the other part is that we’re not affected until we are. And sometimes it takes a bit to get there.

Someone today who proclaims to be indifferent tomorrow could change their tune when more bad stuff happens.

Certainly true. But I've lived through a lot of recessions, and really never has the stock market affected my spending. So a situation where it would have an affect would need to be so much longer and more significant than the current situation, that it makes sense many people feel the way we do.

Ai disagrees, FWIW.
While it's difficult to pinpoint an exact percentage of employees with stock-based compensation (SBC), nearly three-quarters (72%) of companies offer some form of equity compensation to certain employees, up from 65% in 2021. This suggests that a significant portion of the workforce is receiving some form of stock compensation.

So "some form" is the same as "significant portion of their income?" Those aren't the same to me. Maybe AI needs to do better.

Receiving some form of stock compensation doesn't mean an employee's available spending is dependent on that compensation either.

Depends on which cohort of the hobby you're talking about. There's a fairly large percentage of collectors who only collect low value cards and whose purchasing decisions have almost no effect on the broader market. But if we're talking about how the card market as a whole might fare during an economic downturn, then we have to look at the cohort of buyers that are purchasing cards of significant value. And those cards are mostly being purchased by people in their 40s and up with good jobs that often include some form of significant compensation through company stocks or by retired collectors with large bank accounts. In other words, it may not be a large percentage of the hobby as a whole that receives a significant chunk of their income from stocks, but it's certainly one of the most impactful cohorts with respect to pricing fluctuations across the market.

It's an interesting question to consider. I'd love to see a poll. :D But I suspect the number who are actually using stocks as a significant/major source of income (and aren't retired) isn't that high. But who knows? 40s and up with good jobs doesn't scream "relying on stock dividends/sales" to me. I'd guess those people tend to use salary compensation for cash flow, and investments for future cash flow. I know I'm in that group of 40s and up with a good job, and I never touch a penny from my investments and live off my salary. All my card money comes from this income stream. Maybe I'm in the minority of the group of 40s and up with a good job. :shrug: But given the responses here, I don't believe I am.

I stayed in the Navy for 26 years, and I get a darned good pension, supplemented by modest Social Security and a state pension. I guess any or all of these could be cut at some point, but our house and new cars are paid for. No bills other than the ones you have to have. I can afford to buy expensive pre-war cards, but I already have the ones I really want, and I can't see spending that kind of money for cards, and that's not incumbent on the stock market or the economy.

Thank you for your service!

In terms of your cash flow sources, I guess the Biebs taught us to "never say never", but this might be one of the exceptions to that rule. Hard to imagine a scenario where any of those sources gets cut. I could see some tinkering with how they are taxed, and certainly changes for future recipients are always possible, but I think you're pretty safe, James.

Even with the looming exhaustion of the social security trust fund sometime in the next decade, give or take, and the concomitant theoretical 30% benefit cut, I'm incredibly skeptical that such an outcome will actually happen.

The problem with such an option strategy is that a big spread typically prevails between bid and ask prices on puts and calls. Therefore it's difficult to pocket the theoretically realizable advantage of that strategy (particularly after commissions).

:(

Pretty sure all of your income from writing options is also ordinary (or short term capital gain), so you get to pay ordinary tax rates. As opposed to generally lower rates for long-term capital gains.

And unlike income from selling cards, this income is definitely getting reported to the IRS, so anyone who might be tempted to use a little accounting legerdemain when it comes to the taxation of their cardboard sales, that's not a possibility here.

I suppose if your taxable income is low enough that your marginal tax rate is low, then that's not a big deal, but for some of us, our marginal rate is at or approaching the current highest marginal rates.

When you factor in state (and sometimes local) taxes, some of us are lucky enough to get to share 50%+ of our ordinary income with the government.