Market correction , will we see any effect on comics? 7 7

[WolverineX]

5 hours ago, LordRahl said:

Which of course has nothing to do with any market trend. Which is my point. By the way... market is up 5% today. Should we be expecting a boom in comics now?

Depends on the trend not daily fluctuations.  I think today was a bull trap but we'll see how the next few weeks progress... Virus still hasn't hit hard yet. 

 

 

 

[WolverineX]

In other news, anyone see Chris Matthews get retired tonight and abruptly leave the rest of the show.    The poor producer who had to fill in the rest of the segment looked totally shocked.

 

 

[fastballspecial]

It was that or get fired the next week apparently.

 

[fastballspecial]

11 hours ago, delekkerste said:

Yep.  The seasonal flu doesn't cause massive disruptions to supply chains and end markets like this new strain is doing.  The world will probably print negative GDP in Q1.  Chinese GDP will be down quarter-on-quarter.  Japan will print a second consecutive quarter of negative GDP growth (the technical definition of a recession).  US GDP growth will have a 1-handle at best.  

I work for an international company and this is pretty much true. We are still waiting to see the effects on our suppliers in Japan. We don't know how many 
get components from China. 

 

[fastballspecial]

On 2/29/2020 at 10:49 PM, LordRahl said:

On 2/29/2020 at 3:10 PM, Michelangelo said:

A market crash will see the value of comics drop as people lose jobs and have to liquidate their books to make ends meet. (e.g. 2008-2009)

This past week is a correction, not a crash. Comic sales may slow as people are on the sidelines waiting to see how things play out.

I don't anticipate this week's stock market dip to trickle into comic book values

Comic prices in 2008/2009 held steady and did not drop. Which of course isn't terribly relevant to what's going on today so who knows if they will this time but during the last recession, there was no recession in comics. People need to get a grip with this whole virus thing, it is being blown completely out of proportion.

Yep. If they really want to see a crash watch the Big Short on Netflix if its still there. 
Completely explains the Bubble in 2008/9 and its really scary. Never will forget the ending
of it. Great movie.

 

[lou_fine]

11 minutes ago, fastballspecial said:

It was that or get fired the next week apparently.

 

Sounds pretty much likely as at the 1:10 mark, he clearly states "that after conversations with MSNBS, I've decided that tonight will be my last Hardball" and then goes on to speak about making compliments on a woman's appearance in the past which he once incorrectly thought were okay, were never okay and for which he now apologizes for.  

He probably should have waited to get fired and then collect a nice hefty buyout to go away, instead of simply having a hissy fit and retiring on the spot after only 1.5 minutes into his show.     

Edited March 3, 2020 by lou_fine

[WolverineX]

20 minutes ago, fastballspecial said:

I work for an international company and this is pretty much true. We are still waiting to see the effects on our suppliers in Japan. We don't know how many 
get components from China. 

 

Also, the first quarterly earning reports are coming out soon, that will not help the market. 

[delekkerste]

Regarding the appearance to some about no comics recession in 2008-9, I believe that is down mostly to the mark-to-market effect.  As I joked in the Original Art forum last week:  "Nothing to worry about!  With no mark-to-market in OA, we can all pretend be confident that our art is holding steady in value this month.  Heck, I might even revalue some of my artwork higher - you know, "flight to quality" and all that, given all the awesome stuff I own." 

Does anyone think that they could have unloaded big books for more in March 2009 than they could have in July 2008 when hard asset prices were hitting multi-decade highs?  If you do, you've been bamboozled by the mark-to-market effect.  It's why pension funds are so heavily in invested in private equity these days - they pretend that these periodic mark-to-market values don't get stale because they don't see price discovery occurring on a daily basis as you do with publicly-traded securities. 

But, the reality is, art, collectibles, real estate and private companies are of course all affected by what's going on in the markets and economy, even if you don't see assets trading hands every day.  It may be with a lag - these prices aren't going to automatically adjust with every zig (down 11.5% last week) and zag (up 4.3% yesterday) in the stock market (in my estimation, a sustained downturn of 3 or 4 quarters would be enough to see art, collectibles and property prices ratchet lower), but, a severe downturn like we had in 2008-9?  Of course valuations were affected.  Liquidity is the first to go, and then go valuations.  Now, thankfully, the worst of the downturn was over pretty quickly and there was a rapid recovery that gave the illusion that many valuations were not impacted.  But, they absolutely were.  Not as much as if the downturn had gone on for another 6 months or more (then the effects would have been unavoidable and obvious to see), but, there was an impact. 

Edited March 3, 2020 by delekkerste

[delekkerste]

I got some of the best deals I ever got in original art in the first half of 2009 - with absolute metaphysical certainty I would have had to pay more 9-12 months earlier for what I bought in early 2009.  It only looks like the prices I paid were part of an unbroken trend higher because they hadn't sold in July 2008 as well and there was no point of comparison.

Also, had I not been a buyer and the sellers were forced to sell then, they would have had to go even lower in price to find a market-clearing level.  One of the pieces of original art that I bought at the height of the Great Recession was the first-ever appearance of Red Sonja page from Conan #23 (by Barry Windsor-Smith), bought from one of the original art dealers with the toughest reputation to deal with.  I was the only one who was willing to plunk down a (still-sizable) wad of cash for that page in a market that had totally frozen up.  I was so confident of this that I even dared him to go find a better offer.  He tried for 2 weeks but couldn't find anyone else.  Liquidity had dried up almost completely and he took my offer (which was meaningfully below his asking price). 

 

Edited March 3, 2020 by delekkerste

[delekkerste]

One of my friends, who is one of the biggest players in the comic hobby, argued vehemently to me last year that comics weren't affected by the downturn, saying that he had his best year ever as a dealer during that time, with people fleeing stocks to buy comics.  Well, I pinned him down to when the buying actually occurred and, of course, it was as I expected - AFTER the bottom of the stock market in March 2009.  Books certainly weren't flying off the shelves between October 2008 to March 2009.  Others point to that big sale of an Action #1 (think it was a 5.5 or 6.0 IIRC) in 2009 as proof that comics weren't affected by the downturn  Like that book wouldn't have fetched that much or more in July 2008? C'mon, bros, let's not kid ourselves.  Plus, again, that book sold after the stock market had already bottomed in March of that year).

Comics fared better than most other assets in 2008-9 because central banks kicked off a powerful reflation and cut off the downturn (whether they can do so again, if need be, is in question, though, having expended so many of their bullets in an attempt to prop up asset prices for the past 11 years due to the increased financialization and leverage in the economy - not at the bank level, but, at the consumer, business and government level - and the impending/ongoing Boomer retirement wave at a time when pension funds and median retirement savings are woefully underfunded even near all-time highs in asset prices).  As such, the market mostly just froze up and people just held on (and then proceeded to buy like crazy during the reflation, often fleeing the equity market).  But, values definitely were impacted during the teeth of the crisis (fall 2008 to spring 2009) - if you had a choice of selling then or in the spring or summer of 2008, it's ridiculous to think that you wouldn't have done as well or better at the earlier time.   

Edited March 3, 2020 by delekkerste

[lizards2]

On February 28, 2020 at 4:35 PM, Wolverinex said:

Comic keys going to drop these next few months?

 let's hope so!

[Krismusic]

2 hours ago, lizards2 said:

 let's hope so!

I'm with you damn I need to save up more for my next big keys .. 

[LordRahl]

5 hours ago, delekkerste said:

One of my friends, who is one of the biggest players in the comic hobby, argued vehemently to me last year that comics weren't affected by the downturn, saying that he had his best year ever as a dealer during that time, with people fleeing stocks to buy comics.  Well, I pinned him down to when the buying actually occurred and, of course, it was as I expected - AFTER the bottom of the stock market in March 2009.  Books certainly weren't flying off the shelves between October 2008 to March 2009.  Others point to that big sale of an Action #1 (think it was a 5.5 or 6.0 IIRC) in 2009 as proof that comics weren't affected by the downturn  Like that book wouldn't have fetched that much or more in July 2008? C'mon, bros, let's not kid ourselves.  Plus, again, that book sold after the stock market had already bottomed in March of that year).

Comics fared better than most other assets in 2008-9 because central banks kicked off a powerful reflation and cut off the downturn (whether they can do so again, if need be, is in question, though, having expended so many of their bullets in an attempt to prop up asset prices for the past 11 years due to the increased financialization and leverage in the economy - not at the bank level, but, at the consumer, business and government level - and the impending/ongoing Boomer retirement wave at a time when pension funds and median retirement savings are woefully underfunded even near all-time highs in asset prices).  As such, the market mostly just froze up and people just held on (and then proceeded to buy like crazy during the reflation, often fleeing the equity market).  But, values definitely were impacted during the teeth of the crisis (fall 2008 to spring 2009) - if you had a choice of selling then or in the spring or summer of 2008, it's ridiculous to think that you wouldn't have done as well or better at the earlier time.   

Gene - we've been arguing about the comic market since you and I both joined in 2002. Aren't you tired of being wrong for 18 years running  You may be right that no big books sold in that one tight little 6 month period in '09, I honestly don't know if that is the case or not. But why would it have to be big books only? Why wouldn't normal fodder like early ASM and FF not qualify? Or Hulk 181 or whatever other 5 figure books sold in that time frame?

And I freely admit that you will one day be proven correct in that the comic market will crash. You and I may both be dead by then, but it will happen.

[theCapraAegagrus]

19 minutes ago, LordRahl said:

Gene - we've been arguing about the comic market since you and I both joined in 2002. Aren't you tired of being wrong for 18 years running  You may be right that no big books sold in that one tight little 6 month period in '09, I honestly don't know if that is the case or not. But why would it have to be big books only? Why wouldn't normal fodder like early ASM and FF not qualify? Or Hulk 181 or whatever other 5 figure books sold in that time frame?

And I freely admit that you will one day be proven correct in that the comic market will crash. You and I may both be dead by then, but it will happen.

[Krismusic]

[Krismusic]

I hope all comic book sellers will be like this so I can get some great deals....

[Krismusic]

[THE_BEYONDER]

23 minutes ago, Krismusic said:

I hope all comic book sellers will be like this so I can get some great deals....

Not always easy to buy into a sinking ship....

[WolverineX]

Dow down 800 points so far.  The FED interest rate cut isn't going to fix the market.  Give it a few weeks to see how the virus gets sorted out.  Too much uncertainty

[Hollywood1892]

There goes the hobby