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Originally Posted by BobC
And exactly why I was asking. LOL
That is like asking if say Amazon or Tesla's stock would suddenly trade for more, or less, if they decided to switch from one big auditing firm, like KPMG, to another big firm, like Ernst & Young. In the case of the stock prices, the correct answer is that it doesn't matter which accounting firm audits and opines on Amazon or Tesla's financials, they do their work following and adhering to the exact same rules and standards as all the other auditing firms out there. And the same should be the case for TPGs. It shouldn't be the TPG company that audits and opines on the condition of a card somehow impacting that card's perceived price/value, independent of the card's actual condition and grade.
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BobC - not to get too deep into the weeds with your accounting firm analogy, but I'm not sure it's all that applicable here.
When an accounting firm issues an audit opinion, it's basically pass/fail. While regulators over the years have been trying to get accounting firms to be more nuanced, there's never been a real movement beyond the current pass/fail regime. Certainly if accounting firms were issuing opinions graded from 1-10, with half grades and qualifiers and sub-grades, then more people would spend a lot more time reading auditors' reports!
On the other hand, with the TPGs, if they were just opining on pass/fail, then their job would be pretty simple. But having to take all of the various factors for any given card, weight them, and then boil them down into a single number is a heck of a lot more exciting than just pass/fail.
I think when you add on issues around service, volume, perceived acceptance in the marketplace, encapsulation techniques, and other features, there are just too many opportunities for differentiation that I don't expect that the TPGs in our world will ever get to a spot where they're aligned in all respects.
And if you want to get deep enough into the weeds here, most of the major accounting firms have a list of scandals that goes pretty deep. Even if you just look at their PCAOB examination findings, they all seem to be doing an imperfect job of actually following those immutable professional standards. So hoping that the TPGs will be more like accounting firms may not be moving in the right direction.
Which isn't to say that TPGs (and auditors for that matter) couldn't do a lot better!
But to expect that the market will view TPG grading opinions no differently than auditors' reports is probably not a realistic expectation given the differences between the services offered and opportunities for innovation among the TPG services offered.