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Pokemon cards claim outsized gains, but comparison to S&P 500 is flawed
A clip circulating online cited a 3,261% Pokémon card return, but Yahoo Finance says a typical S&P 500 comparison like SPY includes dividends and reflects a broad, diversified index.
A viral financial clip has been promoting Pokémon cards as a smarter investment than the S&P 500 by pointing to a reported 20-year average return of 21.8% per year, or 3,261% total, versus the S&P 500's stated 421% gain.
Yahoo Finance notes the comparison breaks down because it pits a survivor-biased collectibles figure, based on the best graded cards, against the broad market benchmark without matching the measurement approach or accounting for the randomness of outcomes from ordinary packs.
According to Yahoo Finance, the SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY) actually climbed about 509.56% from July 17, 2006 through July 14, 2026, which is presented alongside the idea of “real dividends and liquidity” that collectibles tracking does not include.
Bo Hanson, co-host of The Money Guy Show, described the mismatch as a “math crime,” arguing that the collectibles average is based on top performers while the S&P 500 represents a basket of 500 companies, and he added that individual equity winners such as Amazon, NVIDIA, and Tesla would outperform the collectibles numbers over the same span.
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