{ "url": "https://www.moonstonehq.com/articles/will-the-pokemon-market-crash", "slug": "will-the-pokemon-market-crash", "title": "Will the Pokémon Market Crash? Eight Readings From Our Own Tape, and the One Thing It Cannot Tell You", "summary": "A widely shared video asks whether the Pokémon card market is about to crash. It is the right question and it deserves numbers rather than a vibe, so here are ours. The moonstone Index is up 135% since March 2025, has risen in eighteen consecutive months and has never fallen 2% from a high. Breadth is positive, sealed is rising again, the PSA 10 premium is not compressing, graded sales are up 8% and the registry is growing 2.7% a month. Against that: the market's 300 most valuable cards have stopped moving, the newest sets are falling, and 79% of cards priced $5 and up set their high in the last four months. We list what a crash would look like in these same numbers, so the reading can be checked rather than argued. And we say plainly what an eighteen-month series from a boom cannot know.", "section": "Analysis", "published": "2026-09-15", "readMinutes": 10, "publisher": "moonstone", "findings": [ { "value": "+135%", "measures": "moonstone Index since 2025-03-17", "basis": "235.25 on 2026-09-14; eighteen consecutive up months" }, { "value": "1.8%", "measures": "deepest fall from a high the index has ever recorded", "basis": "October 2025; the index sits at its high today" }, { "value": "+83.5% vs +15.7%", "measures": "index vs S&P 500, twelve months to 2026-09-14", "basis": "+16.0% vs +1.4% over three months; both roll daily" }, { "value": "0 of 8", "measures": "crash signals triggered on 2026-09-14", "basis": "two are amber; see the table" } ], "tables": [ { "title": "Crash signals from our own data, as of 2026-09-14", "columns": [ "Reading", "Source", "Now", "Crash signal", "Status" ], "rows": [ { "Reading": "Index drawdown from high", "Source": "moonstone Index", "Now": "0.0% (high on Sep 14; deepest ever 1.8%)", "Crash signal": "20% or more from the high", "Status": "green" }, { "Reading": "Breadth, English cards", "Source": "[Breadth](/articles/market-breadth-september-2026)", "Now": "37.7% up, 25.5% down over 16 days", "Crash signal": "55% or more falling over 30 days", "Status": "green" }, { "Reading": "The leaders", "Source": "[Breadth](/articles/market-breadth-september-2026)", "Now": "top 300 cards: 19% up, 8% down, 73% flat", "Crash signal": "value-weighted top 300 negative over 60 days", "Status": "amber" }, { "Reading": "Peak timing", "Source": "[The Drawdown Book](/articles/the-drawdown-book)", "Now": "79% of cards priced $5 and up set their 18-month high since June", "Crash signal": "a majority more than 20% below their high", "Status": "amber" }, { "Reading": "PSA 10 premium", "Source": "graded snapshot series", "Now": "median 4.36x to 4.51x over 2+ weeks on 296 cards; 82 compressed, 99 expanded", "Crash signal": "median premium ratio below 0.85", "Status": "green" }, { "Reading": "Graded sales volume", "Source": "graded snapshot series", "Now": "PSA 10 sales in the provider window +7.6% (107,429 to 115,548 across 347 cards)", "Crash signal": "down 20% or more", "Status": "green" }, { "Reading": "Sealed", "Source": "sealed product tape", "Now": "2,007 products: 833 up, 258 down, 916 flat over 30 days; value-weighted +3.9%", "Crash signal": "value-weighted negative with fallers outnumbering risers", "Status": "green" }, { "Reading": "Registry inflow", "Source": "[Where the New Slabs Go](/articles/where-the-new-slabs-go)", "Now": "+2.7% a month, 9,634 slabs a day; Mega era +9.6%", "Crash signal": "a supply reading; it has no crash threshold on its own", "Status": "informational" } ] } ], "charts": [ { "title": "moonstone Index, month-over-month change", "unit": "%", "note": "Forty-one blue-chip cards, equal weight, real TCGplayer histories; the window start = 100", "points": [ { "label": "Apr 2025", "value": 2.1, "basis": null }, { "label": "May", "value": 3.4, "basis": null }, { "label": "Jun", "value": 4.8, "basis": null }, { "label": "Jul", "value": 6.7, "basis": null }, { "label": "Aug", "value": 6.2, "basis": null }, { "label": "Sep", "value": 6.6, "basis": null }, { "label": "Oct", "value": 1.3, "basis": null }, { "label": "Nov", "value": 3.8, "basis": null }, { "label": "Dec", "value": 2.7, "basis": null }, { "label": "Jan 2026", "value": 3.7, "basis": null }, { "label": "Feb", "value": 0.7, "basis": null }, { "label": "Mar", "value": 12.4, "basis": null }, { "label": "Apr", "value": 8, "basis": null }, { "label": "May", "value": 7.1, "basis": null }, { "label": "Jun", "value": 7.1, "basis": null }, { "label": "Jul", "value": 4, "basis": null }, { "label": "Aug", "value": 2.6, "basis": null }, { "label": "Sep (to the 14th)", "value": 4.9, "basis": null } ] } ], "sections": [ "Eighteen up months, no 2% drawdown, decelerating", "Eight readings, what they say now, and what would count", "The premium is holding and the slabs are still selling", "What is different from the last time", "Re-read the same eight numbers" ], "method": [ "Index figures are the moonstone Pokémon Index daily closes as read on 2026-09-14 (354 points from 2025-03-17; the constituent list is a frozen basket of 44 blue-chip TCGplayer ids, frozen since June 2026, of which 41 carry enough real daily history to contribute on a 2026-09-22 recheck, equal weight, homepage series), with the S&P 500 daily close from the same payload; monthly changes compare each month's last close to the prior month's. THE INDEX LEVEL IS NOT REPRODUCIBLE AT A LATER DATE, and that is a property of its construction rather than a revision: each card is normalised to its own FIRST reading inside a trailing 550-day window, so the base date rolls forward every day and with it the whole level. The same series read on 2026-09-22 begins on 2025-03-24 rather than 2025-03-17 and prints 234.91 for 2026-09-14 rather than 235.25. Month-over-month changes and the drawdown reproduce within a tenth of a point on the later base, and the twelve-month benchmark spread within half a point; the 235.25 and the +135% belong to the base of 2026-09-14 and to no other day. Drawdown is 1 minus close over running maximum. Breadth and leader readings are from the breadth study (English cards, cheapest printing, 2026-08-29 to 09-14, 60% moves excluded). Peak timing is from The Drawdown Book (2,417 curves, 1,269 priced $5+). PSA 10 premium: cards whose PSA 10 sold median (8+ sales) has a snapshot at two dates at least 14 days apart and a raw market of $5+ at both, premium = median over cheapest-printing raw price at each date; 296 cards; compressed and expanded mean a ratio below 0.95 or above 1.05. Graded sales volume sums the provider's PSA 10 sample size at the first and last snapshot for the same 347 cards. Sealed: the 2,007 tracked sealed products with a price and a 30-day change on 2026-09-15; up and down mean more than 2%; value-weighted compares summed current prices to summed prices 30 days earlier implied by each product's change. Registry inflow is from Where the New Slabs Go. Every reading in the checklist comes from a live series and will differ slightly on any later date; the premium and velocity rows in particular move every day now that the graded snapshot cron refreshes the whole answered set daily. The video that prompted this piece was not transcribed and is not quoted; the question is treated on its own. 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." }