Trading cards are crushing stocks right now, and it is not particularly close. Over the past 20 years, Pokémon cards have surged roughly 3,261%, compared to the S&P 500’s respectable but distant 483% over the same stretch. In 2025 alone, the average Pokémon card climbed nearly 46%, while the S&P 500 delivered a 17.9% total return. That gap is not a typo. The collectibles market, once dismissed as a hobbyist sideshow, has produced returns that make Wall Street’s best years look pedestrian.
Just last month, a PSA 10 Pokémon Pikachu Illustrator card sold for $16.49 million at Goldin Auctions, shattering the previous record for any trading card ever sold. But raw returns only tell part of the story. Stocks remain the safer, more liquid, and more accessible investment for the vast majority of people. The trading card market rewards expertise, patience, and a willingness to hold physical assets that can be difficult to sell quickly. This article breaks down how both asset classes performed in 2025, what drives their respective returns, where the real risks hide, and whether cards belong in a serious portfolio alongside traditional equities.
Table of Contents
- How Have Trading Cards Performed Against Stocks in Recent Years?
- What Drives Trading Card Returns and Where Do They Fall Short?
- Record-Breaking Sales and What They Signal About the Market
- Stocks vs. Cards as Portfolio Assets — Practical Tradeoffs
- The Risks Most Card Investors Underestimate
- Who Should Consider Cards as an Investment?
- Where Both Markets Are Headed
- Conclusion
- Frequently Asked Questions
How Have Trading Cards Performed Against Stocks in Recent Years?
The numbers from 2025 paint a clear picture of divergence. The S&P 500 posted a 17.9% gain including dividends, extending a remarkable three-year streak that also included a 26.3% return in 2023 and 25.0% in 2024. That is elite territory for equities by any historical standard, well above the long-term average annual return of roughly 10-12%. Yet the stock market’s 2025 was far from smooth. Tariff fears triggered an approximately 19% decline in the spring before trade deals materialized and sent the index surging roughly 39% from its April low through year-end. Seven mega-cap stocks, including NVIDIA, Alphabet, Microsoft, and Meta, accounted for over half of those gains.
Strip out the magnificent few, and the typical stock had a fairly average year. Trading cards, by contrast, posted broad-based strength across multiple categories. The SCI 500 index, which tracks 500 investment-grade sports cards, grew from roughly $901,000 to $1.2 million in total value during 2025, representing steady, organic growth rather than a speculative spike. Vintage sports cards were the standout performers. The 1977-1983 vintage card index surged nearly 96% in 2025, making it the strongest segment in the entire collectibles market. The MLB Top 100 card index gained nearly 50%, putting baseball at the top of traditional sports card categories. pokémon cards continued their multi-year tear, with vintage examples generating compound annual growth rates between 30% and 40% over extended periods.
What Drives Trading Card Returns and Where Do They Fall Short?
The forces behind card appreciation are fundamentally different from what moves stock prices. Card values respond to nostalgia cycles, pop culture relevance, player performance, and the simple economics of fixed supply meeting growing demand. The Pokémon franchise benefits from a collector base that spans multiple generations, with adults who grew up in the late 1990s now possessing the disposable income to chase cards they coveted as children. That emotional connection creates price floors for iconic cards that no corporate earnings report can replicate. However, if you assume every trading card is a winning investment, you are going to lose money.
The returns that make headlines belong to rare, high-grade cards, typically graded PSA 9 or 10, from desirable sets and iconic characters. The average card sitting in a binder does not appreciate meaningfully. Condition dependency is one of the most underappreciated risks in this market. A first-edition Base Set Charizard graded PSA 10 might sell for six figures, while the same card graded PSA 7 fetches a small fraction of that. Unlike stocks, where every share of Apple is identical to every other share, each card is a unique physical object whose value hinges on centering, surface quality, edges, and corners. Counterfeiting is another concern, though reputable grading services like PSA and BGS have helped mitigate that risk for serious collectors.
Record-Breaking Sales and What They Signal About the Market
The trading card market crossed into genuinely surreal territory on February 16, 2026, when a PSA 10 Pokémon pikachu Illustrator card sold for $16.49 million through Goldin Auctions. The card was owned by Logan Paul, who had purchased it previously as part of his high-profile entry into the Pokémon collecting world. That sale eclipsed the prior all-time record of $12.932 million, set in August 2025 by a Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant Dual Logoman Autographs card. For perspective, $16.49 million is more than the market capitalization of some publicly traded companies. These headline sales do more than generate clicks.
They establish a psychological ceiling that pulls the entire market upward. When collectors see a single card sell for eight figures, it reframes what a $50,000 or $100,000 card purchase feels like. It normalizes high-end card collecting as a legitimate asset class rather than a childhood hobby. The trading card market overall is estimated at $13 billion as of 2024, growing at a compound annual growth rate of 8.5%. The trading card games segment alone was valued at $8.4 billion in 2025 and is expected to reach $9.2 billion in 2026. With over 420 million collectors worldwide engaging across sports and non-sports categories, the buyer pool continues to deepen.
Stocks vs. Cards as Portfolio Assets — Practical Tradeoffs
The most important practical difference between stocks and trading cards is liquidity. You can sell shares of any S&P 500 company in seconds during market hours and have cash in your brokerage account within a day. Selling a trading card worth $5,000 or more typically involves listing it on an auction platform, waiting for the right buyer, paying seller fees, and shipping a fragile physical item. For cards worth six or seven figures, the sales process can take weeks or months. If you need money quickly, stocks win this comparison without contest. Stocks also offer dividends, a form of passive income that trading cards simply cannot match. A card sitting in a protective case generates zero cash flow.
Its only return comes from price appreciation upon sale. From a regulatory standpoint, the stock market operates within a highly structured framework with investor protections, transparent pricing, and institutional oversight. The card market has none of that. Prices are set by whatever the last comparable sale was, and there is no SEC watching for manipulation. On the other hand, cards offer something stocks do not: zero correlation with financial markets. When the S&P 500 dropped 19% in spring 2025 over tariff fears, vintage Pokémon cards did not follow it down. For investors looking to diversify beyond traditional assets, that non-correlation has real value.
The Risks Most Card Investors Underestimate
The biggest trap in the trading card market is survivorship bias. The returns you see cited in articles and on social media are almost always based on the best-performing cards. Nobody posts about the 2021 Panini Prizm rookie card of a player who tore his ACL and never regained form. Sports cards in particular carry the risk of career-ending injuries, scandals, or simple decline that can wipe out a card’s value overnight. Pokémon cards are somewhat insulated from this because the characters are fictional and the franchise shows no signs of fading, but even within Pokémon, the wrong set or wrong era can underperform dramatically.
Storage, insurance, and grading costs also eat into returns in ways that stock investors never deal with. Getting a card graded by PSA currently costs between $20 and $150 depending on the service tier, and turnaround times can stretch for months. High-value cards need proper storage and insurance, adding ongoing carrying costs. And unlike a stock portfolio, a card collection can be physically stolen, damaged by water or fire, or lost in shipping. These are real risks that the headline return numbers never account for.
Who Should Consider Cards as an Investment?
Trading cards make sense as an alternative investment for people who already have a deep knowledge of the hobby and can accurately assess condition, rarity, and market demand. If you can look at an ungraded card and estimate its grade within half a point, you have an edge that no stock market equivalent provides.
The Pokémon market particularly rewards collectors who understand set print runs, regional variants, and the grading population reports that indicate how many copies of a card exist at each grade level. Without that expertise, you are essentially gambling on trends you do not understand, which is a reliable way to buy at the top and sell at the bottom.
Where Both Markets Are Headed
The convergence of traditional finance and collectibles is accelerating. Fractional ownership platforms now allow investors to buy shares of high-value cards, bringing stock-market-style liquidity to a previously illiquid market.
The continued growth of the trading card market, projected to expand at an 8.5% CAGR from its $13 billion 2024 baseline, suggests the asset class is maturing rather than peaking. Meanwhile, the S&P 500 faces headwinds from elevated valuations and concentrated gains in a handful of mega-cap technology stocks, which introduces fragility even after three consecutive years of strong performance. For Pokémon collectors specifically, the franchise’s enduring global appeal and the finite supply of vintage cards create a supply-demand dynamic that, barring a generational shift in interest, should continue supporting prices for the foreseeable future.
Conclusion
The data is unambiguous: top-tier trading cards, particularly vintage Pokémon cards, have outperformed the S&P 500 over nearly every time horizon that matters. A 3,261% gain over 20 years dwarfs the stock market’s 483% over the same period, and 2025’s 46% average increase for Pokémon cards nearly tripled the S&P 500’s 17.9% return. Record sales like the $16.49 million Pikachu Illustrator card confirm that the market’s ceiling is still rising. But outperformance is not the same as suitability.
Stocks remain the better choice for most people’s core savings because of their liquidity, dividend income, regulatory protections, and accessibility. Trading cards belong in a portfolio the way any alternative asset does: as a smaller allocation driven by genuine expertise and a long time horizon. If you know the Pokémon market well enough to spot undervalued cards before the rest of the market catches on, this asset class offers returns that Wall Street simply cannot match. If you are buying cards because you saw a headline about a $16 million sale, you are probably too late to the trade.
Frequently Asked Questions
Are Pokémon cards actually a better investment than the S&P 500?
Over the past 20 years, top-tier Pokémon cards have returned roughly 3,261% compared to the S&P 500’s 483%. However, those returns reflect the best cards in the best condition. The average card in a random collection has not appreciated meaningfully. Investment-grade results require expertise in identifying undervalued cards before the broader market catches on.
How much has the most expensive trading card ever sold for?
A PSA 10 Pokémon Pikachu Illustrator card sold for $16.49 million on February 16, 2026, at Goldin Auctions. The previous record was $12.932 million for a Michael Jordan and Kobe Bryant Dual Logoman Autographs card in August 2025.
What kind of returns did sports cards generate in 2025?
The 1977-1983 vintage sports card index surged nearly 96% in 2025, making it the top performer. The MLB Top 100 card index gained nearly 50%. The broader SCI 500 index, tracking 500 investment-grade cards, showed steady growth from roughly $901,000 to $1.2 million in total value.
Are trading cards liquid enough to be considered real investments?
Not in the way stocks are. Stocks can be bought and sold in seconds with transparent pricing. Selling a high-value card often requires auction platforms, authentication, grading, and finding the right buyer, which can take weeks or months. This illiquidity is one of the most significant practical differences between the two asset classes.
Do I need to get cards graded to see investment returns?
For meaningful appreciation, yes. Cards graded PSA 9 or 10 command dramatically higher prices than ungraded or lower-graded copies of the same card. A PSA 10 first-edition card can be worth 10 to 50 times more than the same card graded PSA 7. Grading costs range from $20 to $150 per card depending on the service level.
How big is the global trading card market?
The overall trading card market was estimated at $13 billion in 2024, growing at a compound annual growth rate of 8.5%. The trading card games segment specifically was valued at $8.4 billion in 2025 and is projected to reach $9.2 billion in 2026. Over 420 million collectors worldwide participate across sports and non-sports categories.
