Somewhere out there right now, someone has 80% of their TCG portfolio in a single card. They bought it during a hype cycle, it felt like a sure thing, and the idea of splitting that capital across several “lesser” opportunities felt like thinning out a winning bet. We are not judging, we have seen versions of this play out more times than we can count (this may have even happened to one of us here at The TCG Times…), including from people who genuinely know what they are doing. The human brain is wired to double down on conviction, and in a market driven as heavily by emotion as the TCG world, that instinct gets expensive.
Just quickly so we are all on the same page, what does conviction mean? High conviction = you have done the research, the fundamentals stack up, and you genuinely believe in the card’s long-term case. Low conviction = it looks interesting but you are less certain
Position sizing, let us explain, is the part of investing that nobody in the TCG community talks about, and it is quietly one of the most important things you can get right. It does not usually make exciting content…., but this is the TCG Times we make this exciting! It will not get you a viral social media post. But it is the difference between a bad call costing you 5% of your portfolio and a bad call costing you 50% of it. In a market as volatile as this one, that difference is everything.
What Position Sizing Actually Means
If you are coming at this with no traditional investing background, here is the plain language version: position sizing is simply deciding how much of your total investment pot goes into any single bet (in this case, a single card, or even a single sealed product). If your TCG portfolio is worth $2,000 and you spend $1,600 of it on one card, that card represents an 80% position (80% of your portfolio). If it drops 50% in value, which, in this market, can happen in a week… or a day, your overall portfolio is down 40% from a single card’s movement. If that same $1,600 is spread across eight cards at $200 each and one of them drops 50%, your portfolio is down 5%. Same underlying event, very different outcome, very different financial pain.
This is not a complicated concept. The difficulty is applying it when your conviction in a specific card is high (sometimes your gut isn’t right), because concentration feels like confidence and diversification sometimes feels like doubt. It is not. Concentration is a risk-level choice, not a confidence statement. You can be very confident in a card and still choose not to bet 70% of your portfolio on it, because that level of concentration means a single bad outcome, a reprint announcement, a market correction, a counterfeit concern, a publisher decision, the list goes on, can permanently damage your overall financial position.
What We Actually Recommend
We can’t leave you hanging, so here are some recommendations to go by. There is no universally correct position size, sorry. It depends on your total portfolio size, your timeline, and your personal risk tolerance. But here is our rough framework, adjusted for the specific risk characteristics of this weird thing we call the TCG market.
No single card should exceed 20-25% of your total TCG portfolio. At that stage, the position becomes highly risky (worst case scenario, not likely, but possible) is painful but survivable. Your portfolio loses a quarter of its value, which is bad, but you are still in the game with 75-80% of your capital intact to rebuild.
Your highest-conviction hold can sit at the top of that range. The card or sealed product you have done the most research on, that has the strongest Four Pillar alignment, and that has the most durable scarcity can reasonably be your largest position. But even your best idea has limits.
New, unproven positions should start smaller. When you are entering a new game, a new card category, or a market you are less familiar with, One Piece for a Pokémon investor, for instance or graded cards for someone who has only held raw, start at 5-10% and build as you develop conviction through market research (like checking out The TCG Times every now and the). The cost of starting small and scaling up is a slightly lower gain if you are right. The cost of starting large and being wrong is considerably more painful.
The Reprint Risk Adjustment
In the TCG market specifically, there is one risk factor that we think justifies a specific position sizing rule: reprint risk, a TCG investor’s kryptonite. As we covered in the $2 Pack Problem, a reprint announcement can cut a card’s value by 30-50% essentially overnight (literally) with no warning and no opportunity to exit before the damage is done. This is a risk that does not exist in most traditional investing categories, stocks and shares for example.
Our practical rule: any card that carries meaningful reprint risk meaning it is competitively relevant, not on a formal no-reprint list, and produced by a publisher with a history of reprinting demand (Yu-Gi-Oh investors crying right now), driven cards should not exceed 15% of your portfolio, regardless of conviction. The asymmetry of reprint risk (sudden, severe, unrecoverable downside versus gradual upside) does not justify concentration at higher levels. Basically, the risk-to-reward isn’t worth it.
Cards with structural reprint protection, for example Reserved List MTG cards, first-edition originals with a genuine stamp that cannot be replicated, or Manga Rares covered by Bandai’s Block X exemption (both great for investors) can justify higher concentration because the reprint risk is either formally excluded (the company that owns the IP will not report) or structurally implausible. These are the cards where conviction and concentration can align.
The Cash Position: The Allocation Most People Skip
We mentioned this in our $1,000 portfolio piece, and it deserves reinforcement here, holding a cash position within your TCG allocation is itself a position sizing decision, and it is one of the most valuable ones you can make. Cash is flexible, and having it ready is key.
Markets correct. Reprints happen. Hype cycles peak and all. When these events happen, the investors who profit most from the correction are not the ones who predicted it (as much as they will tell you) they are the ones who happened to have cash available to deploy into a market that just got cheaper. Keeping 10-15% of your TCG portfolio in cash is not indecision, your not scared to spend it. It is the ammo that lets you act when other people can only watch.
The TCG Times’ Verdict: Size Your Positions As If the Market Will Surprise You, Because It Probably Will
The best TCG investors we have observed over the years usually share one characteristic that is rarely discussed: they are never catastrophically wrong. Not because they make better calls, although they are educated, but because they never bet so heavily on a single position that one bad outcome could end their participation in the market entirely. Position sizing is the discipline that lets you be wrong about individual cards and right about the overall strategy. If you read this all and you’re still confused, here’s the simplified version… don’t put all your eggs in one basket.
Disclaimer: The TCG Times is a news and educational platform. All content provided is for informational purposes only and should not be construed as professional financial advice. Trading cards are high-risk, volatile assets. Past performance is not indicative of future results. Always perform your own due diligence before making any financial decisions.
