{
  "url": "https://www.moonstonehq.com/articles/cute-vs-strong-pokemon-investing",
  "slug": "cute-vs-strong-pokemon-investing",
  "title": "Cute vs. Strong: Which Pokémon Actually Pay?",
  "summary": "The market trades Charizard and cuddles Pikachu, so we split fifty species into a cute camp and a strong camp, scored 207 of their tracked cards on popularity and returns, and let the data pick a winner. It isn't who you'd guess, and neither is the runner-up's consolation prize.",
  "section": "Investment Research",
  "published": "2026-07-27",
  "readMinutes": 9,
  "publisher": "moonstone",
  "findings": [
    {
      "value": "155k vs 109k",
      "measures": "recorded eBay sales, strong vs cute",
      "basis": "across our tracked universe"
    },
    {
      "value": "+110% vs +71%",
      "measures": "median 18-mo return",
      "basis": "strong n=139 · cute n=68"
    },
    {
      "value": "98% vs 76%",
      "measures": "share of cards positive",
      "basis": "strong's consistency edge"
    },
    {
      "value": "$51,994",
      "measures": "the most expensive card is CUTE",
      "basis": "Flareon ☆ PSA 10 · July 27, 2026"
    }
  ],
  "tables": [
    {
      "title": "The camps, head to head",
      "columns": [
        "Measure",
        "Cute 🩷",
        "Strong 💪",
        "Winner"
      ],
      "rows": [
        {
          "Measure": "Recorded eBay sales",
          "Cute 🩷": "108,634",
          "Strong 💪": "155,145",
          "Winner": "Strong"
        },
        {
          "Measure": "PSA slabs (tracked cards)",
          "Cute 🩷": "675,430",
          "Strong 💪": "1,272,510",
          "Winner": "Strong"
        },
        {
          "Measure": "Median 18-mo return",
          "Cute 🩷": "+70.8%",
          "Strong 💪": "+110.2%",
          "Winner": "Strong"
        },
        {
          "Measure": "Share of cards positive",
          "Cute 🩷": "76%",
          "Strong 💪": "98%",
          "Winner": "Strong"
        },
        {
          "Measure": "75th-percentile return",
          "Cute 🩷": "+184.9%",
          "Strong 💪": "+175.6%",
          "Winner": "Cute"
        },
        {
          "Measure": "Median PSA 10 price",
          "Cute 🩷": "$1,104",
          "Strong 💪": "$2,749",
          "Winner": "Strong"
        },
        {
          "Measure": "Most expensive single card (Jul 27, 2026)",
          "Cute 🩷": "$51,994",
          "Strong 💪": "$39,000",
          "Winner": "Cute"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "charts": [
    {
      "title": "Most-traded species, recorded eBay sales",
      "unit": null,
      "note": "All grades, aggregated across every tracked printing per species",
      "points": [
        {
          "label": "Charizard 💪",
          "value": 29613,
          "basis": null
        },
        {
          "label": "Pikachu 🩷",
          "value": 26285,
          "basis": null
        },
        {
          "label": "Mew 🩷",
          "value": 15701,
          "basis": null
        },
        {
          "label": "Mewtwo 💪",
          "value": 11492,
          "basis": null
        },
        {
          "label": "Umbreon 🩷",
          "value": 9748,
          "basis": null
        },
        {
          "label": "Rayquaza 💪",
          "value": 9079,
          "basis": null
        },
        {
          "label": "Gengar 💪",
          "value": 7801,
          "basis": null
        },
        {
          "label": "Lugia 💪",
          "value": 5760,
          "basis": null
        },
        {
          "label": "Eevee 🩷",
          "value": 5683,
          "basis": null
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "sections": [
    "The market trades strong, barely",
    "Strong pays like a portfolio; cute pays like a lottery",
    "The most expensive card in either camp is cute"
  ],
  "method": [
    "Camps are a curated 25-species-per-side editorial split (starters' base forms count cute; final evolutions strong; Mew cute, Mewtwo strong); species matched by name token across every tracked printing. LIMITATION, disclosed on an independent recompute 2026-09-22: the two 25-name lists are an editorial judgement and this piece does not print them, so a reader cannot reproduce the split or check a species' assignment. The names it does commit to are Pikachu, Eevee, Mew, Umbreon, Flareon, Ditto and Clefairy on the cute side and Charizard, Mewtwo, Rayquaza, Gengar, Lugia and Dialga on the strong side; the other thirty-seven are unpublished. Popularity: recorded eBay sold listings (all grades, graded-skewed by construction) and PSA registry totals across our stratified 520-card graded universe, top-of-market weighted, stated counts are for tracked cards, not the entire hobby. Returns: 18 months of daily TCGplayer MARKET prices (January 2025 – July 2026), which are asks and not sold comps, with a $10 floor, ≥200 daily points, medians of 14-day windows; 139 strong cards and 68 cute ones cleared those gates, 207 in all. PSA 10 medians are recorded eBay SOLD medians and require ≥4 sales except where a smaller sample is shown explicitly (n=), so the return columns and the graded columns are different kinds of number. Every figure is a July 2026 reading: our daily card tape begins 2026-08-30 and our graded snapshot tape in late August, so none of the returns or volume counts on this page can be re-derived from our current data. Nothing here is financial advice, especially the fluffy parts."
  ],
  "terms": "Figures are moonstone's own recorded measurements, dated as published. Quote them with the population stated beside them. The article at `url` is the human form of this file."
}