Quote:
Originally Posted by Snowman
Not wanting to sell a card at a loss is a completely irrational behavior that is only held by true collectors, not investors. Try putting yourself in an investor's shoes as opposed to your collector shoes for a moment. Instead of it being a Mayweather RC, imagine it was an investment in General Motors stock or Pfizer or pick some other random stock. Say 2 months after you bought it, the market crashes and you want to move some of your money around. Maybe you want to put it in gold or silver or into bitcoin or some other investment opportunity. Are you really not going to sell that General Motors stock for its current market price because you paid double what it's worth today? Really? Are you really telling me that nobody does this?
"Nope, I'm not selling my Pfizer stock until they net me a profit! I don't take losses, God dammit!!!"
This isn't some guy who's been saving up his paper route money until he finally had enough to land his holy grail Mayweather RC. This is someone with money to invest with no emotional connection whatsoever to their cards. He was never going to keep that card. He probably never even saw it in person. Just bought it on eBay, shipped it to his vault, kept it there, and then sold it from his vault so he could put the money in Bitcoin instead.
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When it comes to this "I'm not taking a loss" subject, you have little understanding of what often drives human behavior.
Grown adults often do exactly what you're mocking there (with something like their Pfizer stock). They absolutely DO think your exact foot-stopping quote of "I'm not gonna sell until a get a profit!", regardless of what the sensible allocation of their investments should be going forward. Has nothing to do with whether it's a "collector" or "investor"; it's the same principle for anyone involved with a speculative asset. The only time that many can stomach and justify taking the loss is (as brought up above) when it's to offset capital gains.
It's easy for someone to get married to their purchase price (human nature for a number of unflattering or poorly thought-out reasons.) And on the flip side, they also take profits for the wrong reasons. Because what you "made" isn't the key factor either, except for tax purposes. Once you own something, the purchase price is a sunk cost. All that matters is what the value is now, what could happen going forward, your risk tolerance at the current value for that asset, what portion it is of your overall portfolio, etc. But I digress.
Rationality isn't what dictates decisions sometimes. Especially when it comes to this.