6/22/20 Sports Card Investing Targets
Welcome back to another edition of our Targets article! Today we’re going to take a look at some NBA cards as well as a couple MLB cards in anticipation (hopefully) of the players voting for a season happening. I’m going to use SportsCardInvestor.com’s “Price Movements by Card” list which is one of the many great tools you can access today as well by signing up for a Market Movers Subscription where if you use the promo code ROTOGRINDERS you can get 20% off your first payment on any subscription.
We will generally target Panini brands for football and basketball as they currently own exclusive NFL (since 2016) and NBA (since 2009) rights for sports cards. For MLB we want to avoid Panini as they don’t own the official license and stick with Topps/Bowman brands. Just like DFS, be sure to manage your bankroll and don’t spend more than what your budget allows. Make sure you pay attention to the grading when looking at targets. Grading makes a huge difference in price, so price targets will be based on grading. An ungraded card is referred to as “Raw”. When targeting a Raw card, try to find one with the best centering, corners and edges (and surface if you can tell) as that is a card that might be worth sending in for grading. We’ll use SportsCardInvestor’s Market Movers data to evaluate current-market price targets based on what people have been paying most recently. Go above/below that market rate based on your convictions and confidence levels by player.
6/22/20 Sports Card Investing Targets
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Ja Morant – The 2019 Optic Base card prices for this likely Rookie of the Year broke out of a downward trend in early June and have since been on the rise. As you can see from the chart below, however, the gap between his PSA 9 and 10 versions of that card have expanded rather than move in unison. This presents us with an opportunity to pick up the PSA 9s in hopes that it will be bid back up to 40% of the PSA 10 value that it held back on June 7th. That would be close to a 30% increase from it’s current level where it holds just 32% of the PSA 10 value.
Chart Courtesy of SportsCardInvestor.com
You can buy the 2019 Ja Morant Optic Base PSA 9 card at this link I would target it under $60
You can get his PSA 10 card here The most recent price was $182
Trae Young – Trae Young’s 2018 Prizm Base PSA 10 rookie cards have been moving in the past week. The chart shows that they are breaking out of some consolidation in the past week climbing to a 3-month high of $259.99. Meanwhile the PSA 9 has lagged a bit and represents an opportunity to buy in at a value price of about $90. In late May the PSA 9 price was about 41% of the PSA 10 value whereas now it’s just 34%. That’s about a 20% difference in values which suggests the PSA 9 cards have some room to run in order to catch the PSA 10 price action. The Hawks’ season is over, but Trae is one of those buzzy players whose rookie cards people are trying to accumulate and this might be a good opportunity to add him to your collection.
Chart Courtesy of SportsCardInvestor.com
You can buy the 2018 Trae Young Prizm Base PSA 9 card at this link I would target it under $90
You can get his PSA 10 card here The most recent price was $260
Ronald Acuna – The MLB seems like it might be close to having a season again. Currently the owners have made some concessions and the ball is now in the players’ court. I’m guessing we will find out either way some time in the next few days. I saw Ronald Acuna’s name on the Market Movers’ “Popular Card Charts” feature and thought it would be good to look at one of the hottest MLB names with a partial season potentially on the horizon. I noticed some strange price action between the PSA 10 and the BGS 9.5 versions of the 2017 Bowman Chrome Prospects card. At several points, the BGS 9.5 actually surpassed the PSA 10 in value which is strange in comparison to the normal discrepancy in value between BGS 9.5 and PSA 10 graded cards. This makes me feel like the PSA 10 might actually be undervalued and would make an interesting target.
Chart Courtesy of SportsCardInvestor.com
You can buy the 2017 Ronald Acuna Bowman Chrome Prospects PSA 10 card at this link I would target it under $190
You can get his BGS 9.5 card here The most recent price was $145
Jasson Dominguez – Finally I wanted to take a look at the 2020 Jasson Dominguez Bowman Prospects cards. These cards have come back down to Earth after the initial hype but have still been keeping retail interest strong with Bowman Mega boxes still selling for about 2x the retail price. The Dominguez cards seem to be plateauing based on the charts. The autographed Chrome card is still expensive, but has been settling in between $800-$900. The card I’m interested in accumulating is his raw Bowman Chrome cards which can now be bought in the $25 range. I don’t mind taking a flier on a prospect with Dominguez’ potential at that price and buying several if you can find people selling lots. If he has the type of success that Acuna did, then we could be talking about a card worth 3x or more in a few years after he has his first season in the Majors. If he is able to live up to the hype throughout his career, and the card market stays in tact, then the sky’s the limit (as long as the print run doesn’t go crazy). If you have a bigger bankroll and want to lock in the scarcity, then I think it might be a good time to buy the autographed version if it can hold what looks like a potential near-term bottom. As with any raw cards, make sure to examine the images thoroughly to ensure their condition and centering are mint.
Chart Courtesy of SportsCardInvestor.com
You can buy the 2020 Bowman Jasson Dominguez Chrome Raw card at this link I would target it under $25
You can get his 2020 Bowman Jasson Dominguez Chrome Autograph Raw here Try to target around $800