When Will The Bubble Pop? Market Prediction Using Google Trends

[Glebe]

“Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful.”

This statement by perhaps the most successful investor of all time, Warren Buffett, is an important phrase to keep in mind while we all look for ways to make an income off sports cards, and the crux of this article. Now that you have read that quote, you are probably thinking… “Is the sports card market being fearful, or greedy?”

If you, like many, got into buying and selling sports cards early 2019, you have without a doubt seen tremendous growth in nearly all your investments. The age old question when the market is booming is “when will this bubble pop?” If you ask any experienced investor of any market, market timing is next to impossible to predict, but does that apply to sports cards which are a market based mostly on consumer emotion? This piece will take a dive into when the last big “market bubble” was and attempt to compare and contrast the price differences of then and now, and what things looked like when that bubble did eventually pop. We will be using a great new website called CardLadder which creates market aggregates dating back to 2004, Google Trends, and personal experience. My hypothesis before starting this research is - By analyzing with Google Trends, there will be significant trends of when the “bubble” will pop.

First Dive: Using Google Trends To Discover The Last Bubble

Google Trends (trends.google.com) is an interesting tool that allows for some light predictive analysis. Researchers have used Google Trends to identify when major flu seasons might be, where COVID outbreaks are happening, etc. This is all done by google searches being tracked and logged, so when a spike of searches happens around flu symptoms it’s apparent an outbreak is imminent. Using this tool, I am able to see when the card market was most heavily searched and try to compare prices between then and now. Our search term will be the following - “Basketball Cards”, and using Micheal Jordan’s “Last Dance” as an example of a mini bubble. Google Trends uses a point scale of 0-100, 100 being most heavily searched and 0 being no search.


Basketball Cards:



The graph for “Basketball Cards” shows the highest popularity score being in March 2004 where it reached a max score of 100. “Basketball Cards” as a search term never reached this level of popularity again, coming closest in February 2005 with a score of 94. The 3rd place score was in July of 2005 with a score of 93. “Basketball Cards” as a search term has hit an 93 score 4 days into August, so we could see another 100 score this month with the return of basketball during quarantine. The hardest dip we see on the graph is immediately following the surge of March 2004, in October 2004 the search term dipped to a score of 37.

Looking at what possibly caused the surge in 2004, we look back at 2003. Obviously, a huge rookie class had come along to take the torch from the 90’s players and solidify themselves as NBA cornerstones. We will explore the following players' prices during this peak: Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant. Data can be hard to come across with not every sale logged, so I will do my best with the cards that are offered.

March 2004: 1986 Fleer Michael Jordan RC PSA 7 - $412
October 2004: 1986 Fleer Michael Jordan RC PSA 7 - $347
Percent % Difference in Price: -17%

March 2004: 1993 Ultra Michael Jordan Scoring Kings Raw: $23
October 2004: 1993 Ultra Michael Jordan Scoring Kings Raw: $10.50
Percent % Difference in Price: -75%

March 2004: 1996 Topps Kobe Bryant Base PSA 10 - $27
October 2004: 1996 Topps Kobe Bryant Base PSA 10 - $27
Percent % Difference in Price: 0%

March 2004: 1996 Topps Chrome Kobe Bryant Base PSA 10 - $551
October 2004: 1996 Topps Chrome Kobe Bryant Base PSA 10 - $427
Percent % Difference in Price: -25%

March 2004: 1996 Topps Finest Kobe Bryant Base PSA 10 - $82
November 2004: 1996 Topps Finest Kobe Bryant Base PSA 10 - $50
Percent % Difference in Price: -48%
There were no sales logged for this card in October 2004

The 2020 Bubble:

Using Google Trends and CardLadder, we can clearly see where cards exploded.



In October 2019, “Basketball Cards” had a search score of 32. From October 2019, to February 2020, “Basketball Cards” went from a score of 32, to 84 and then proceeded to slightly dip and rebound until August where it exploded for a score of 92 and climbing. The August peak is obviously sports returning and COVID.

But what exactly caused the October 2019 - Feb 2020 jump in popularity? One common name that continues to pop up is “Gary V” - regardless of how you feel, the guy is accomplished, bright, and bringing a lot of positive energy into our hobby. The first published article I can find from Gary Vaynerchuk is dated “a year ago” where Gary gives his insights on the future hobby explosion and pinpoints a few cards. Using Google Trends, you can see some points where “Gary Vaynerchuk” and “Basketball Cards” seem to dance and touch points at times. I’m not confident enough in this to say there is a positive correlation there, but it is interesting.



I think the 2020 bubble is the result of a strong economy, exciting young players, media fanfare, and hobby boxes being priced out from the average collector so money goes into single cards.

Using “Michael Jordan: The Last Dance” as a Bubble Example

The perfect storm - we were all locked in our homes for quarantine, there were no sports on TV, and a docu-series was rolling out with unseen footage of Michael Jordan and his Bulls squad. This situation created an interesting bubble in a vacuum situation for us to examine. If you were at all involved with sports cards during April 2020, it was impossible to keep any Jordan’s in stock during the time. I’ve never had cards sell faster than during this Jordan craze… and some of the chatter around Jordan then was slightly similar to what we are hearing now with the overall market surge - “Yeah, the prices are high, but it’s an established player I just don’t see it reverting back.” Did they revert back? Let’s take a look at the Google Trends, and a couple key Jordan cards before, during, and after April.

Important date to keep in mind: Series premier was April 19th, Series Finale was May 18th.

On April 5th, “Michael Jordan” as a search term was scored at 19.

On April 19th, “Michael Jordan” as a search term peaked with a search score of 100.

On May 31st, “Michael Jordan” as a search term dropped to a search score of 30.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
On April 5th, “Michael Jordan Cards” as a search term was scored at 27.

On May 17th, “Michael Jordan Cards” as a search term peaked with a search score of 100.

On May 31st, “Michael Jordan Cards” as a search term dropped to a search score of 40.


----------------------------------------------------------
On April 6th:1986 Fleer Michael Jordan RC PSA 9 - $8,577
On May 21st: 1986 Fleer Michael Jordan RC PSA 9 - $16,981
On May 31st: 1986 Fleer Michael Jordan RC PSA 9 - $9,675



Prices did have a slight recovery in June, with a PSA 9 selling for $15,300 but sales since have ranged from a low of $9,600 to a high of $13,100

On April 6th: 1997 Metal Universe Michael Jordan PSA 9 - $358
On May 18th: 1997 Metal Universe Michael Jordan PSA 9 - $852
On June 5th: 1997 Metal Universe Michael Jordan PSA 9 - $460


Since the June 5th sale, there was one sale of $584 and a low sale of $381.

Some cards did seem to survive this pseudo bubble, or even perform better:



On April 13th: 1996 Topps Chrome Michael Jordan PSA 10 - $1,025
On May 21st: 1996 Topps Chrome Michael Jordan PSA 10 - $1,337
On June 9th: 1996 Topps Chrome Michael Jordan PSA 10 - $1,353

With the previous graphs, we would see a noticeable drop, this Topps Chrome did the opposite and hit $4,000 on July 23rd.

So what’s up with the huge difference in price between these cards that crashed, and the Topps Chrome that stayed stable and even gained value post “Last Dance”. My suspicion with all of these prices is some obvious Jordan fatigue and people getting their hands on a card they wanted and stopped spending. With the chrome in particular, the PSA 10 Population of this card is a lowly 105, and is the first year of Topps Chrome making it even more iconic. The Metal Universe PSA 9 has a pop score of a low 324, but has largely been discussed as being a “gimmicky” overly 90s card. Most surprising to me was the 1987 Fleer Jordan PSA 9 having a pop score of 2,727.


So what does all this mean…?

Honestly, my hypothesis that Google Trends would give us significant insight into the next crash of the card market isn’t really confirmed. Some cards experienced large drops, some next to nothing during that 2004 search term drop on Google Trends. I think the most glaring example that proves my hypothesis correct is actually the “Last Dance Bubble”, but that bubble cannot be compared to the current market as there were many more controlled variables. I was hoping to find some more data on how significant prospect (LeBron, Melo, Wade) prices varied after that 2004 drop, but they stayed relatively stable. If I were to take this experiment further, I would attempt to buy old Beckett price guides from March 2004, and October 2004 which could give me more comprehensive pricing. I would have also liked to compare Baseball bubbles, and Football bubbles, but the data on pricing just wasn’t available to me.

I think that the current “Market Bubble” is unlike anything we have ever seen before. All the money in cards right now is unearthed territory. It seems to be defeating Bears every day of the week, and when people worried COVID would destroy the market pricing, it did the opposite and continued to surge upward at a record pace.

The current market can make anyone look like a genius, please be careful of who you are getting your “buying tips” from and consider ulterior motives. Do you own research, and buy players you believe in or like. Reverting back to Warren Buffet, I think that the market is Greedy, but interestingly enough a fair mix of both. I think sellers are greedily stashing away monster cards watching them climb, but fearful to sell in case they go up more. When will that shoe drop?

In closing, I didn't really discover anything ground breaking, but it was still pretty fun.

[tjforce]

Cool analysis.

Thanks for not making this a "The Sky is falling" post or the opposite

[Lothar]

Originally Posted by tjforce

Cool analysis.

Thanks for not making this a "The Sky is falling" post or the opposite

Agreed, a nice level headed assessment of data. Thank you OP!

[CoolG]

Originally Posted by Glebe

“Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful.”

This statement by perhaps the most successful investor of all time, Warren Buffett, is an important phrase to keep in mind while we all look for ways to make an income off sports cards, and the crux of this article. Now that you have read that quote, you are probably thinking… “Is the sports card market being fearful, or greedy?”

If you, like many, got into buying and selling sports cards early 2019, you have without a doubt seen tremendous growth in nearly all your investments. The age old question when the market is booming is “when will this bubble pop?” If you ask any experienced investor of any market, market timing is next to impossible to predict, but does that apply to sports cards which are a market based mostly on consumer emotion? This piece will take a dive into when the last big “market bubble” was and attempt to compare and contrast the price differences of then and now, and what things looked like when that bubble did eventually pop. We will be using a great new website called CardLadder which creates market aggregates dating back to 2004, Google Trends, and personal experience. My hypothesis before starting this research is - By analyzing with Google Trends, there will be significant trends of when the “bubble” will pop.

First Dive: Using Google Trends To Discover The Last Bubble

Google Trends (trends.google.com) is an interesting tool that allows for some light predictive analysis. Researchers have used Google Trends to identify when major flu seasons might be, where COVID outbreaks are happening, etc. This is all done by google searches being tracked and logged, so when a spike of searches happens around flu symptoms it’s apparent an outbreak is imminent. Using this tool, I am able to see when the card market was most heavily searched and try to compare prices between then and now. Our search term will be the following - “Basketball Cards”, and using Micheal Jordan’s “Last Dance” as an example of a mini bubble. Google Trends uses a point scale of 0-100, 100 being most heavily searched and 0 being no search.


Basketball Cards:



The graph for “Basketball Cards” shows the highest popularity score being in March 2004 where it reached a max score of 100. “Basketball Cards” as a search term never reached this level of popularity again, coming closest in February 2005 with a score of 94. The 3rd place score was in July of 2005 with a score of 93. “Basketball Cards” as a search term has hit an 93 score 4 days into August, so we could see another 100 score this month with the return of basketball during quarantine. The hardest dip we see on the graph is immediately following the surge of March 2004, in October 2004 the search term dipped to a score of 37.

Looking at what possibly caused the surge in 2004, we look back at 2003. Obviously, a huge rookie class had come along to take the torch from the 90’s players and solidify themselves as NBA cornerstones. We will explore the following players' prices during this peak: Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant. Data can be hard to come across with not every sale logged, so I will do my best with the cards that are offered.

March 2004: 1986 Fleer Michael Jordan RC PSA 7 - $412
October 2004: 1986 Fleer Michael Jordan RC PSA 7 - $347
Percent % Difference in Price: -17%

March 2004: 1993 Ultra Michael Jordan Scoring Kings Raw: $23
October 2004: 1993 Ultra Michael Jordan Scoring Kings Raw: $10.50
Percent % Difference in Price: -75%

March 2004: 1996 Topps Kobe Bryant Base PSA 10 - $27
October 2004: 1996 Topps Kobe Bryant Base PSA 10 - $27
Percent % Difference in Price: 0%

March 2004: 1996 Topps Chrome Kobe Bryant Base PSA 10 - $551
October 2004: 1996 Topps Chrome Kobe Bryant Base PSA 10 - $427
Percent % Difference in Price: -25%

March 2004: 1996 Topps Finest Kobe Bryant Base PSA 10 - $82
November 2004: 1996 Topps Finest Kobe Bryant Base PSA 10 - $50
Percent % Difference in Price: -48%
There were no sales logged for this card in October 2004

The 2020 Bubble:

Using Google Trends and CardLadder, we can clearly see where cards exploded.



In October 2019, “Basketball Cards” had a search score of 32. From October 2019, to February 2020, “Basketball Cards” went from a score of 32, to 84 and then proceeded to slightly dip and rebound until August where it exploded for a score of 92 and climbing. The August peak is obviously sports returning and COVID.

But what exactly caused the October 2019 - Feb 2020 jump in popularity? One common name that continues to pop up is “Gary V” - regardless of how you feel, the guy is accomplished, bright, and bringing a lot of positive energy into our hobby. The first published article I can find from Gary Vaynerchuk is dated “a year ago” where Gary gives his insights on the future hobby explosion and pinpoints a few cards. Using Google Trends, you can see some points where “Gary Vaynerchuk” and “Basketball Cards” seem to dance and touch points at times. I’m not confident enough in this to say there is a positive correlation there, but it is interesting.



I think the 2020 bubble is the result of a strong economy, exciting young players, media fanfare, and hobby boxes being priced out from the average collector so money goes into single cards.

Using “Michael Jordan: The Last Dance” as a Bubble Example

The perfect storm - we were all locked in our homes for quarantine, there were no sports on TV, and a docu-series was rolling out with unseen footage of Michael Jordan and his Bulls squad. This situation created an interesting bubble in a vacuum situation for us to examine. If you were at all involved with sports cards during April 2020, it was impossible to keep any Jordan’s in stock during the time. I’ve never had cards sell faster than during this Jordan craze… and some of the chatter around Jordan then was slightly similar to what we are hearing now with the overall market surge - “Yeah, the prices are high, but it’s an established player I just don’t see it reverting back.” Did they revert back? Let’s take a look at the Google Trends, and a couple key Jordan cards before, during, and after April.

Important date to keep in mind: Series premier was April 19th, Series Finale was May 18th.

On April 5th, “Michael Jordan” as a search term was scored at 19.

On April 19th, “Michael Jordan” as a search term peaked with a search score of 100.

On May 31st, “Michael Jordan” as a search term dropped to a search score of 30.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
On April 5th, “Michael Jordan Cards” as a search term was scored at 27.

On May 17th, “Michael Jordan Cards” as a search term peaked with a search score of 100.

On May 31st, “Michael Jordan Cards” as a search term dropped to a search score of 40.


----------------------------------------------------------
On April 6th:1986 Fleer Michael Jordan RC PSA 9 - $8,577
On May 21st: 1986 Fleer Michael Jordan RC PSA 9 - $16,981
On May 31st: 1986 Fleer Michael Jordan RC PSA 9 - $9,675



Prices did have a slight recovery in June, with a PSA 9 selling for $15,300 but sales since have ranged from a low of $9,600 to a high of $13,100

On April 6th: 1997 Metal Universe Michael Jordan PSA 9 - $358
On May 18th: 1997 Metal Universe Michael Jordan PSA 9 - $852
On June 5th: 1997 Metal Universe Michael Jordan PSA 9 - $460


Since the June 5th sale, there was one sale of $584 and a low sale of $381.

Some cards did seem to survive this pseudo bubble, or even perform better:



On April 13th: 1996 Topps Chrome Michael Jordan PSA 10 - $1,025
On May 21st: 1996 Topps Chrome Michael Jordan PSA 10 - $1,337
On June 9th: 1996 Topps Chrome Michael Jordan PSA 10 - $1,353

With the previous graphs, we would see a noticeable drop, this Topps Chrome did the opposite and hit $4,000 on July 23rd.

So what’s up with the huge difference in price between these cards that crashed, and the Topps Chrome that stayed stable and even gained value post “Last Dance”. My suspicion with all of these prices is some obvious Jordan fatigue and people getting their hands on a card they wanted and stopped spending. With the chrome in particular, the PSA 10 Population of this card is a lowly 105, and is the first year of Topps Chrome making it even more iconic. The Metal Universe PSA 9 has a pop score of a low 324, but has largely been discussed as being a “gimmicky” overly 90s card. Most surprising to me was the 1987 Fleer Jordan PSA 9 having a pop score of 2,727.


So what does all this mean…?

Honestly, my hypothesis that Google Trends would give us significant insight into the next crash of the card market isn’t really confirmed. Some cards experienced large drops, some next to nothing during that 2004 search term drop on Google Trends. I think the most glaring example that proves my hypothesis correct is actually the “Last Dance Bubble”, but that bubble cannot be compared to the current market as there were many more controlled variables. I was hoping to find some more data on how significant prospect (LeBron, Melo, Wade) prices varied after that 2004 drop, but they stayed relatively stable. If I were to take this experiment further, I would attempt to buy old Beckett price guides from March 2004, and October 2004 which could give me more comprehensive pricing. I would have also liked to compare Baseball bubbles, and Football bubbles, but the data on pricing just wasn’t available to me.

I think that the current “Market Bubble” is unlike anything we have ever seen before. All the money in cards right now is unearthed territory. It seems to be defeating Bears every day of the week, and when people worried COVID would destroy the market pricing, it did the opposite and continued to surge upward at a record pace.

The current market can make anyone look like a genius, please be careful of who you are getting your “buying tips” from and consider ulterior motives. Do you own research, and buy players you believe in or like. Reverting back to Warren Buffet, I think that the market is Greedy, but interestingly enough a fair mix of both. I think sellers are greedily stashing away monster cards watching them climb, but fearful to sell in case they go up more. When will that shoe drop?

In closing, I didn't really discover anything ground breaking, but it was still pretty fun.

Just a heads up BUFFETT'S stock picks have been awful last few years

[tjforce]

Originally Posted by CoolG

Just a heads up BUFFETT'S stock picks have been awful last few years

Yea... just adjust the timeline slider out a few decades.

[Justin7]

Great data assessment! I have read one of these "when will the bubble pop" threads every year for the last decade but this one was pretty level headed. Good post.

[drobfan8]

Originally Posted by CoolG

Just a heads up BUFFETT'S stock picks have been awful last few years

He doesn't need to take any risks with his strategy. Just needs to keep those dividends ticking over.

I hope he's gonna be ok.

[rj.cataldo]

Really like the post and analysis. I think it’s a valiant effort to bring some logical to an otherwise illogical market. That said, one fault/challenge is that it is neither an efficient or transparent market, and it’s one that’s easily manipulated so it’s challenging to separate noise deform reality sometimes.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[CoolG]

Originally Posted by drobfan8

He doesn't need to take any risks with his strategy. Just needs to keep those dividends ticking over.

I hope he's gonna be ok.

Warren Buffett has substantially underperformed the S&P 500 over the past 10 years

[Bruin7]

I love that Warren Buffet quote. Excellent work sir!

[asujbl]

Cliff notes?

[imbluestreak23]

This is str8 🔥

Quality stuff

[vamz]

great post.

these trend analysis is often how stock pickers decide which companies to invest in.

[2010GBPackers]

Looks like you did a lot of homework here, so kudos for that. Someone actually did their own research on BO!

I don't have time tonight to read, but I'll make sure to with my coffee tomorrow morning. Thank you for contributing something with substance in our hobby.

[Yikes]

Thanks for the effort.

Check this out...



Keep in mind, these charts were gathered from Google Trends to monitor the public's search interest on a particular topic.

The time frames are different and I was looking for correlating patterns to the most recent bubble/trend which is Bitcoin.
This is what I found and the chart patterns are eerily similar. Who knows what the future holds and please don't place your decision based on my chart.

[yiguiri2002]

This is one of the best threads I've seen on BO. Congrats OP.

[thefranchise3]

Absolute great read! Appreciate the effort and using data. This moreso just goes to show that we are in unprecedented times in regards to sports cards. We have not seen anything like this and may not ever again. Anybody that has any clue about what's to come is lying or has an ulterior motive. Just enjoy the ride and don't spend above your means and you will be fine.

[drobfan8]

Yeah but everyone is outperforming him these days.

That quote is washed like buffet, apparently.....

Sent from my SM-G960F using Tapatalk

[mindcycle]

Good stuff OP. Enjoyed reading through the analysis. I do believe that your last paragraph is the key. Buy players that you like. I’d also throw in buy “cards” you like. This is still considered a hobby after all, right? It’s fun to buy low, sell high, buy new cards, rinse repeat. But at the end of the day, do you have a collection you actually enjoy? That to me is the most important part of the hobby.

When all the fly by night “collectors” move on, it’ll be the true hobbyist left to keep it going until the next boom. That same people that kept the hobby alive after the 90’s era fizzled out. If you decide you want to stick around make sure you have some stuff you yourself truly want, not just what others told you to want.

[Supersuper]

Some people say don’t buy Jordan rookie card, because it has large print run. I was thinking “ how about the print run of 100 dollar bill?”

[armoursave]

Very interesting post. Thanks for putting this together.

[BC81]

Well done OP, thank you for creating a very thoughtful analysis.

I agree with you, it’s so hard to figure things out from here. We are in uncharted territory and I have no idea where this going to go.

The current prices of cards have accelerated far beyond what I expected. I didn’t think certain key cards will hit their current thresholds in 5-10 years.

There are so many elements that are keeping this gravy train going, IG flexing, Gary V, the explosion of investment vlogging gurus, sneakerheads, new gamblers addicted to breaking, and let’s not forget the OG hobbyists.

This hobby has a niche from every type of collector to prop up prices and keep the bubble expanding. So if all the gamblers all returned to sports betting, there are many other collector types to keep the hobby going.

Congratulations to established collectors who amassed impressive collections before this boom. For new collectors or investors, be careful only 2% of the players you collect will be superstars or be hobby worthy. However, if you PC a certain player, 100% of that investment will always be fulfilled.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[kd the sniper]

Awesome dump reading.. Kept my attention and was very insightful
Thanks

[johndoyle]

great read! thanks OP!

[Glebe]

Thanks for the words everyone! Was a pretty fun little project to do . I don't want to quote the image for the sake of saving space but that BTC vs Basketball Card trendline was really interesting.

Feel free to drop a DM here on or on IG if anyone ever wants to talk!

Also, all that Warren Buffett hate... cmon now!