{ "url": "https://www.moonstonehq.com/articles/we-checked-our-own-67-buy-calls", "slug": "we-checked-our-own-67-buy-calls", "title": "We Checked 67 Of Our Own Buy Calls. 53 Of Them Fell.", "summary": "That looks like a disaster next to a market where only 30% of cards went down. It is not, and the reason matters far more than our scorecard: of the 23,598 cards we price at two dollars or more, 6,742 never changed price once in 31 days, and a card whose price never moves cannot go down. Among cards whose price moved as often as our picks' did, 69.3% fell. Measured against those, our calls land at the 54th percentile. Dead average.", "section": "Quant research", "published": "2026-09-29", "readMinutes": 9, "publisher": "moonstone", "findings": [ { "value": "53 of 67", "measures": "of our published buy calls fell", "basis": "median 2.67% lower, median 14 days held" }, { "value": "28.6%", "measures": "of the cards we price at $2 or more never changed price once", "basis": "6,742 of 23,598 products over 31 days" }, { "value": "12.6th", "measures": "percentile of our calls against every card at their price", "basis": "the comparison that includes the frozen ones" }, { "value": "53.7th", "measures": "percentile against cards that were actually moving", "basis": "same calls, same days, same returns" } ], "tables": [ { "title": "The same 23,598 products, grouped by how many days their price changed. August 30 to September 29, 2026.", "columns": [ "Days the price changed", "Products", "Share of the group", "Median 31 day move", "Share that fell" ], "rows": [ { "Days the price changed": "Never", "Products": "6,742", "Share of the group": "28.6%", "Median 31 day move": "0.00%", "Share that fell": "0.0%" }, { "Days the price changed": "1 to 2", "Products": "5,963", "Share of the group": "25.3%", "Median 31 day move": "+1.16%", "Share that fell": "36.8%" }, { "Days the price changed": "3 to 9", "Products": "6,515", "Share of the group": "27.6%", "Median 31 day move": "+1.98%", "Share that fell": "34.1%" }, { "Days the price changed": "10 to 19", "Products": "2,485", "Share of the group": "10.5%", "Median 31 day move": "-0.73%", "Share that fell": "54.2%" }, { "Days the price changed": "20 or more", "Products": "1,893", "Share of the group": "8.0%", "Median 31 day move": "-5.63%", "Share that fell": "69.3%" }, { "Days the price changed": "All of them", "Products": "23,598", "Share of the group": "100%", "Median 31 day move": "0.00%", "Share that fell": "30.0%" } ] }, { "title": "The two benchmarks, and the same answer inside every group. 67 calls, marked to September 29, 2026.", "columns": [ "Our calls, grouped by their own price changes", "Calls", "Median return", "Percentile vs every card at their price", "Percentile vs cards moving as often" ], "rows": [ { "Our calls, grouped by their own price changes": "Changed on 3 to 9 days", "Calls": "11", "Median return": "-1.33%", "Percentile vs every card at their price": "23rd", "Percentile vs cards moving as often": "54th" }, { "Our calls, grouped by their own price changes": "Changed on 10 to 19 days", "Calls": "21", "Median return": "-2.04%", "Percentile vs every card at their price": "16th", "Percentile vs cards moving as often": "55th" }, { "Our calls, grouped by their own price changes": "Changed on 20 or more days", "Calls": "35", "Median return": "-5.22%", "Percentile vs every card at their price": "7th", "Percentile vs cards moving as often": "49th" }, { "Our calls, grouped by their own price changes": "All 67 calls", "Calls": "67", "Median return": "-2.67%", "Percentile vs every card at their price": "12.6th", "Percentile vs cards moving as often": "53.7th" } ] }, { "title": "The 11 markable August 17 picks, on the Near Mint price record. Both ends of every move are readings from that same record, not the figure the guide printed, so the two ends are like for like. Each card's end date is its own last reading, and its comparison groups are matched to that same pair of dates. Two cards reprice so often that fewer than 30 cards at their price kept pace, which is below the bar the ledger uses, so those two cells report the group size instead of a percentile.", "columns": [ "Card", "Recorded Aug 17", "Its last reading", "Move", "Days its price changed", "Percentile vs all cards", "Percentile vs cards moving as often" ], "rows": [ { "Card": "[Skyridge Snorlax](/card/ecard3-100)", "Recorded Aug 17": "$136.21", "Its last reading": "$167.02", "Move": "+22.6%", "Days its price changed": "5", "Percentile vs all cards": "91st", "Percentile vs cards moving as often": "94th" }, { "Card": "[Jungle Snorlax Holo](/card/base2-11)", "Recorded Aug 17": "$342.03", "Its last reading": "$375.66", "Move": "+9.8%", "Days its price changed": "2", "Percentile vs all cards": "79th", "Percentile vs cards moving as often": "82nd" }, { "Card": "[Unbroken Bonds Secret Snorlax](/card/sm10-158)", "Recorded Aug 17": "$80.32", "Its last reading": "$81.55", "Move": "+1.5%", "Days its price changed": "15", "Percentile vs all cards": "53rd", "Percentile vs cards moving as often": "82nd" }, { "Card": "[FRLG Snorlax](/card/ex6-15)", "Recorded Aug 17": "$102.80", "Its last reading": "$101.40", "Move": "-1.4%", "Days its price changed": "3", "Percentile vs all cards": "24th", "Percentile vs cards moving as often": "28th" }, { "Card": "[Pikachu ex SIR](/card/sv08-238)", "Recorded Aug 17": "$291.55", "Its last reading": "$286.77", "Move": "-1.6%", "Days its price changed": "28", "Percentile vs all cards": "23rd", "Percentile vs cards moving as often": "n=19, too thin" }, { "Card": "[Snorlax delta](/card/ex15-10)", "Recorded Aug 17": "$211.13", "Its last reading": "$203.85", "Move": "-3.4%", "Days its price changed": "2", "Percentile vs all cards": "16th", "Percentile vs cards moving as often": "19th" }, { "Card": "[Lost Origin TG05 Pikachu](/card/swsh11.5tg-TG05)", "Recorded Aug 17": "$46.39", "Its last reading": "$44.67", "Move": "-3.7%", "Days its price changed": "40", "Percentile vs all cards": "25th", "Percentile vs cards moving as often": "72nd" }, { "Card": "[Paldean Fates Shiny Pikachu](/card/sv04.5-131)", "Recorded Aug 17": "$80.10", "Its last reading": "$74.40", "Move": "-7.1%", "Days its price changed": "27", "Percentile vs all cards": "23rd", "Percentile vs cards moving as often": "54th" }, { "Card": "[Snorlax V](/card/swsh1-141)", "Recorded Aug 17": "$11.21", "Its last reading": "$9.57", "Move": "-14.6%", "Days its price changed": "35", "Percentile vs all cards": "3rd", "Percentile vs cards moving as often": "13th" }, { "Card": "[151 Pikachu IR](/card/sv03.5-173)", "Recorded Aug 17": "$90.60", "Its last reading": "$76.90", "Move": "-15.1%", "Days its price changed": "41", "Percentile vs all cards": "2nd", "Percentile vs cards moving as often": "n=15, too thin" }, { "Card": "[Base Set Pikachu](/card/base1-58)", "Recorded Aug 17": "$16.84", "Its last reading": "$13.08", "Move": "-22.3%", "Days its price changed": "39", "Percentile vs all cards": "1st", "Percentile vs cards moving as often": "3rd" } ] } ], "charts": [ { "title": "Share of cards that fell, by how many days their price changed", "unit": "%", "note": "The zero bar is arithmetic rather than evidence: a price that never changes cannot fall. It is 28.6% of the group, and it is what pulls the all-in figure down to 30.0%. Fixed 100% scale. August 30 to September 29, 2026, 23,598 products at $2 or more.", "points": [ { "label": "Price never changed", "value": 0, "basis": "6,742 products, and not one of them can show a loss" }, { "label": "Changed on 1 to 2 days", "value": 36.8, "basis": "5,963 products" }, { "label": "Changed on 3 to 9 days", "value": 34.1, "basis": "6,515 products" }, { "label": "Changed on 10 to 19 days", "value": 54.2, "basis": "2,485 products" }, { "label": "Changed on 20 or more days", "value": 69.3, "basis": "1,893 products, and the median one lost 5.63%" }, { "label": "Every product, all in", "value": 30, "basis": "23,598 products, the figure a headline would quote" } ] } ], "sections": [ "Three in ten prices never moved at all", "Now our own calls, against both benchmarks", "The August guides, on the other price file", "Three things we expected to find and did not", "Two corrections we owe", "What a buyer does with this" ], "method": [ "SOURCES AND WINDOW. Two price records, never combined inside one figure. `price_history`, the recorded TCGplayer market price of the flagship printing, holds 31 days from August 30 to September 29, 2026 and about 52,400 products a day; it carries the 67 call ledger and the 23,598 product universe. `nm_history`, the Near Mint quote, holds 49 days from August 12 and carries the August 17 guide section only. The two disagree for 58 of the 87 weekly calls where both hold a reading on the call's entry day, so they are two measures rather than one, and the guides section states its own record. `nm_history` is refreshed in rotation, which is why every August pick is marked to its own last recorded day and its comparison groups are matched to that same pair of dates rather than to a shared end date. Neither column is an asking price: the market price is derived from recent sales, and the listing-shaped column in the schema is `price_min`, which is not used here. Neither is a graded figure. UNIVERSE. Every product with a recorded price on both August 30 and September 29, 2026 worth $2.00 or more on the first day, which is 23,598. The $2 floor is there because a one cent change on a fifty cent card is a 2% move and would fill the result with noise. Products are keyed by TCGplayer product id throughout, which is what prevents the 1,215 catalogue ids claimed by two rows each from double counting; where a call had to be named, the catalogue row was chosen by the set name matching the price record and failing that the lower card id. Every product from a set that released inside the window is removed from the universe and from every comparison group, 275 products in total: the two [30th Celebration](/set/30th%20celebration) groups in full, released September 16, plus any product whose own recorded release date falls between August 12 and September 29. CALL POPULATION. 212 weekly calls and 238 engine candidate rows. Of the 212: 4 are sealed and 86 name a graded copy, which cannot be marked against a raw single card price; 27 of those 90 also carry no product id, and the remaining 122 raw single card calls all carry one. Adding the 65 published engine calls and collapsing to one row per card per publication date gives 134. 99 of those have a recorded price on their own entry day; the 35 that do not were published before August 30. 67 of the 99 were held at least seven days to September 29, covering 52 distinct cards, and those 67 are the ledger. A call is marked from the recorded price on its own entry day rather than from the printed figure, so both ends of every return come from the same column; the printed figure matched that reading to within half a percent for 83 of the 87 weekly calls where both exist. COMPARISON GROUPS. For each call, every other product priced on the call's own entry day and on September 29, worth $2.00 or more, quoted between half and double the call's entry price, release exclusions applied. The second, narrower group additionally requires the comparison product's price to have changed on at least as many days as the called card's did over the same 31 days; 61 of the 67 calls retain a group of 30 or more under that rule and the other 6 are reported as unmeasurable against it rather than dropped from the ledger. Percentiles are mid-rank, which matters because ties at exactly 0.00% are common. Medians throughout, never means: the mean 31 day move of the universe is pulled around by a long right tail and would flatter every figure here. PRICE CHANGES. A count of days on which a product's recorded price differed from the previous recorded day, over the 31 days. It is not a liquidity or volume measure. Checked against `market_depth`, the only listing counts we hold, which covers 1,290 usable products on one day, September 7, 2026: the rank correlation with listing counts is -0.169, and repeating it against distinct seller counts points the same way rather than the intuitive one, so no claim about trading is made anywhere in this article. TESTS. Published against held back engine calls: stratified permutation over the nine entry days carrying both groups, 20,000 iterations, on cohort percentile, after requiring seven days held, p = 0.28. Calls beating the narrower group: 32 of 61, two-sided binomial p = 0.80. Prior move against subsequent move: Spearman -0.045 on the 44 calls with a reading 14 days before entry. HORIZONS. Every call in the ledger states a horizon of 12 months or longer and the median one has been held 14 days, so nothing here is a judgement on whether a call was right. This is market research, not financial 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." }