- 4,382
- Connecticut
- Ridley-X4
Cars, as we know, are a largely depreciating asset. And I say "largely" because sometimes there are cars that do retain their value over time, or even appreciate. Just one glance at the auction prices at Pebble Beach should tell you something. So as someone who's into cars and at least a little bit into investing, I found Rally Rd. to be an interesting idea.
Y'see, when you buy a share of an equity's stock, such as Disney, you buy a part of that company, and obviously not the entire company. When you typically buy a car, you buy the car outright. With Rally Rd. lets you treat rare cars (and other ostensibly valuable items) as stocks, wherein you could hypothetically buy that Lamborghini Diablo SE30 Jota, or you could buy it in a more fractional sense, like buying shares of a company. Makes sense, right?
Except, I noticed something weird.
I'm the sort of person who likes looking at the broader trading history of whatever asset I buy on Schwab. I don't day-trade or anything that'd make be fret; I vastly prefer a fire-and-forget strategy most of the time, so I can have peace of mind. Now, the last time I checked, Rally Rd. has two charts you can examine: one that shows the actual transactional history of that particular asset, such as how much it went at RM Sotheby's or the Barrett-Jackson, and the trading history of the item "per share" on the platform. You would think the two would have a close correlation, wherein if a car gets a higher price at an auction than it did last time, the price of the car on Rally Rd. would also go up, but I don't think there's much overlap at all. If anything, the chart that shows the trading history of the item on the platform seemed erratic, almost like people were using the whole app for "pump-and-dump" schemes. It also doesn't help, if my memory is correct, that in a previous version of the app, they didn't even show the in-app trading history, and only the "real-world" trading history, making it awfully easy for someone to get hosed.
Where it gets especially weird is that when I signed up - and I've since deleted the app - they gave me a single "share" of this Rocky Maivia trading card, wherein the share I was given was worth $12 at the time, or at least I think it was. Either way, just gifting people that sort of thing reminds me of how sports betting apps will give you a free bet. Definitely sus, as the kids say these days.
I'd like to be wrong about this, so if you have any corrections, let me know.
EDIT: Here are the two charts on Rally Rd. for that Lamborghini Diablo SE30 I mentioned.
EDIT2: And here are the charts for that Rocky card.
Y'see, when you buy a share of an equity's stock, such as Disney, you buy a part of that company, and obviously not the entire company. When you typically buy a car, you buy the car outright. With Rally Rd. lets you treat rare cars (and other ostensibly valuable items) as stocks, wherein you could hypothetically buy that Lamborghini Diablo SE30 Jota, or you could buy it in a more fractional sense, like buying shares of a company. Makes sense, right?
Except, I noticed something weird.
I'm the sort of person who likes looking at the broader trading history of whatever asset I buy on Schwab. I don't day-trade or anything that'd make be fret; I vastly prefer a fire-and-forget strategy most of the time, so I can have peace of mind. Now, the last time I checked, Rally Rd. has two charts you can examine: one that shows the actual transactional history of that particular asset, such as how much it went at RM Sotheby's or the Barrett-Jackson, and the trading history of the item "per share" on the platform. You would think the two would have a close correlation, wherein if a car gets a higher price at an auction than it did last time, the price of the car on Rally Rd. would also go up, but I don't think there's much overlap at all. If anything, the chart that shows the trading history of the item on the platform seemed erratic, almost like people were using the whole app for "pump-and-dump" schemes. It also doesn't help, if my memory is correct, that in a previous version of the app, they didn't even show the in-app trading history, and only the "real-world" trading history, making it awfully easy for someone to get hosed.
Where it gets especially weird is that when I signed up - and I've since deleted the app - they gave me a single "share" of this Rocky Maivia trading card, wherein the share I was given was worth $12 at the time, or at least I think it was. Either way, just gifting people that sort of thing reminds me of how sports betting apps will give you a free bet. Definitely sus, as the kids say these days.
I'd like to be wrong about this, so if you have any corrections, let me know.
EDIT: Here are the two charts on Rally Rd. for that Lamborghini Diablo SE30 I mentioned.
EDIT2: And here are the charts for that Rocky card.
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