{
  "url": "https://www.moonstonehq.com/articles/the-target-book",
  "slug": "the-target-book",
  "title": "We Put a Price Target on the Whole Book. It Refused Four Cards in Five",
  "summary": "A disclosed valuation model now runs nightly across 21,974 cards. It produces 3,228 targets and 18,746 refusals, and prints the reason for every refusal on the card's own page: 8,729 sit below the $1.50 signal floor where postage swamps demand, 7,679 have no verified PSA 10 median to anchor to. Of the cards it will value, 1,820 targets sit below today's price against 1,401 above, and two thirds of the calls are HOLD. We also print the one place the number can disagree with our own Market Report, because a reader would otherwise find it themselves.",
  "section": "Quant research",
  "published": "2026-09-17",
  "readMinutes": 7,
  "publisher": "moonstone",
  "findings": [
    {
      "value": "3,228",
      "measures": "cards the model will put a number on",
      "basis": "of 21,974 scored, so 14.7%"
    },
    {
      "value": "8,729",
      "measures": "refused for sitting below the $1.50 floor",
      "basis": "where listing minimums swamp any demand signal"
    },
    {
      "value": "7,679",
      "measures": "refused for having no verified PSA 10 median",
      "basis": "nothing to anchor a target to"
    },
    {
      "value": "1,820",
      "measures": "of the 3,228 targets point DOWN",
      "basis": "against 1,401 pointing up; the book is not talking its own position"
    }
  ],
  "tables": [
    {
      "title": "Why the model declines to value a card",
      "columns": [
        "Reason",
        "Cards"
      ],
      "rows": [
        {
          "Reason": "The raw price sits below the $1.50 signal floor",
          "Cards": "8,729"
        },
        {
          "Reason": "No verified PSA 10 median is on the tape",
          "Cards": "7,679"
        },
        {
          "Reason": "Fewer than ten PSA 10 comps on the tape",
          "Cards": "1,610"
        },
        {
          "Reason": "The cohort's implied value is more than 2.5x from the price",
          "Cards": "622"
        },
        {
          "Reason": "The PSA 10 median fails the 0.85x to 40x sanity band against raw",
          "Cards": "90"
        },
        {
          "Reason": "No reference cohort of at least 20 comparable cards",
          "Cards": "16"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "title": "The call, across every card the model will value",
      "columns": [
        "Call",
        "Cards",
        "Average upside",
        "Average raw price"
      ],
      "rows": [
        {
          "Call": "BUY",
          "Cards": "242",
          "Average upside": "+54.2%",
          "Average raw price": "$39.30"
        },
        {
          "Call": "HOLD",
          "Cards": "2,818",
          "Average upside": "+3.5%",
          "Average raw price": "$35.65"
        },
        {
          "Call": "SELL",
          "Cards": "168",
          "Average upside": "-35.7%",
          "Average raw price": "$28.52"
        }
      ]
    },
    {
      "title": "Where the 3,228 targets sit against today's price",
      "columns": [
        "Target against current price",
        "Cards"
      ],
      "rows": [
        {
          "Target against current price": "More than 25% below",
          "Cards": "1,014"
        },
        {
          "Target against current price": "Between 25% below and level",
          "Cards": "802"
        },
        {
          "Target against current price": "Between level and 25% above",
          "Cards": "515"
        },
        {
          "Target against current price": "Between 25% and 50% above",
          "Cards": "343"
        },
        {
          "Target against current price": "More than 50% above",
          "Cards": "554"
        }
      ]
    }
  ],
  "charts": [],
  "sections": [
    "What it refuses, and why",
    "What the 3,228 actually say",
    "Why a target can disagree with itself",
    "How to use a number like this"
  ],
  "method": [
    "Read from moonstone production on September 17, 2026, across the 21,974 catalogue cards carrying a nightly feature row. The target is a disclosed deterministic formula, printed in full on every report that carries one: base equals the card's PSA 10 median divided by the median PSA-10-to-raw multiple of its reference cohort, where the cohort is its price band within its era, falling back to its price band, its era, then its set, first with at least 20 members; the base is then multiplied by fixed plus or minus 2.5% adjusters for float, gem-rate drift, finish favour and character demand. Gates that force a refusal, each printed on the card: raw price at or above $1.50, a PSA 10 median on at least 10 verified comps and inside a 0.85x to 40x sanity band against raw, a cohort cell with at least 20 members, and a resulting target within 0.4x to 2.5x of raw. The call is a weighted vote over seven recorded signals at fixed thresholds, BUY at +4 and SELL at -4. TWO CONVENTIONS RUN IN THIS PIECE AND THEY ARE ONE PERCENT APART: the down-level-up split (1,820 / 7 / 1,401) compares each stored target with its stored raw price, while the five-band table sorts on the stored upside PERCENTAGE, which is rounded, so four cards sit on the other side of level there and the first two bands sum to 1,816 rather than 1,820. The bands are the rounded column; the split is the exact comparison. THE WHOLE-BOOK PASS DOES NOT HOLD FOUR OF THE SIGNAL INPUTS (float, grading expected value, species demand, finish favour), so its targets can differ from the same card's Market Report and on some cards differ enough to change the call; that is stated in the body and is an open defect, not a rounding difference. Horizon is 180 days. No figure here is a forecast of a specific card's price and none of it is investment advice."
  ],
  "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."
}