How to read the Ledger
Every card gets a verdict every day. This page explains what each one means, what the tiers are, and how we grade ourselves in public. Five minutes and you can read the whole board.
The five stamps
The stamp is the verdict: the one-word answer to "what does the system think of this card today?"
The buy-side stamp
One of our tested buy patterns is firing on this card today. Across 2.5 years of backtesting against real recorded prices, cards stamped ACCUMULATE finished higher 8 weeks later roughly 3 times out of 4. The market average over the same windows was under half.
What to do with it: If you were thinking about adding this card, history says the odds are with you. Check which tier fired (below) for how reliable that specific pattern has been.
The default stamp
Nothing actionable either way. The card may even be rising fast, but none of our tested buy patterns qualify it, often because the move is too vertical, too young, or missing confirmation. Most cards, most days, are HOLD.
What to do with it: Patience costs nothing. If you own it, keep it. If you don't, the system is not telling you to chase.
The warning stamp
A sharp weekly fall, or a strong month that has started slipping, a common top pattern. In backtesting, cards entering SELL WATCH fell a further 10.7% (median) within 4 weeks.
What to do with it: Not a command to panic-sell. It is a prompt: if you hold this card, decide your exit plan now rather than after another leg down.
The speculative stamp
A beaten-down card showing its first signs of life: hard fall, fresh upturn, calming volatility, on a set past its launch chaos. Historically about half of these calls win, but the winners paid well.
What to do with it: Bargain-hunter territory. Smaller positions, tighter exits, eyes open.
The supply stamp
Live eBay listings are drying up while the price holds an uptrend: supply pressure building under the market. This is our newest signal; its listing-count history is young, so it carries no backtest record yet.
What to do with it: Treat it as an early heads-up rather than a proven pattern, and watch how its live record develops on the Ledger.
The buy tiers: which pattern fired
ACCUMULATE is not one signal, it is a family of tested patterns. When a card earns the stamp, its page shows which tier fired and that tier's full backtested record. The exact rules stay private; the results never do.
Premium product showing our highest-grade momentum pattern, historically our most reliable buy tier.
Record: 84% higher 8 weeks on · median +22.1% · typically never traded below the flag price
A fixed-print event or promo product breaking upward with momentum. The print run is locked forever, so rising demand meets supply that cannot grow. Our testing backs riding these.
Record: 70% higher 8 weeks on · median +20.3% · typically never traded below the flag price
Premium product trading near its all-time high with the trend still rising. In our testing, strength this persistent tended to continue.
Record: 84% higher 8 weeks on · median +16.8% · typically never traded below the flag price
High-end product grinding steadily upward without weekly froth, the quiet accumulation pattern.
Record: 75% higher 8 weeks on · median +11.2% · typically never traded below the flag price
Live listings drying up while the price trends higher: supply pressure building under the market.
A strong climb still gaining this week, on a card with room to run: trading below its former peak and not gone vertical. Momentum that has already hit record prices doesn't qualify.
Record: 65% higher 8 weeks on · median +14.8% · typically never traded below the flag price
Sell-side patterns work the same way: Hard Drop flags a sharp weekly fall, Rollover flags a strong month that has started slipping. Both feed the SELL WATCH stamp.
The Scarcity Score (0-100)
How hard a card is to actually find, estimated from graded populations across PSA, CGC, and BGS, live eBay supply, and how fast copies sell. Bandai publishes no print runs, so this is our estimate from observable supply, updated daily.
Strategy fit: Flip, Hold, Grade
Three scores out of 100 on every card page, answering "which kind of collector is this card for?" Flip rewards liquidity and quick momentum. Hold rewards durable, steady climbs. Grade rewards a strong raw-to-graded price gap and healthy gem rates. A card can be a terrible flip and a great hold at the same time, and the scores will say so.
How we grade ourselves
Every public call is logged the day it fires and graded automatically at 4 and 8 weeks against its flag price. We cannot edit or delete a call once it is made. The Ledger shows the full scoreboard: the backtested record behind every tier, and the live record accumulating in real time. If the rules stop working, that page will say so before we do.
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Observations, not financial advice. Fan-made; not affiliated with Bandai, Toei, or Shueisha.