Trading Basics Trading vs Investing

Hey Guys, 

After running a Patreon for the past 2 years I realize the concept of Trading vs Investing can be confusing if you're new to it! 

These 2 terms are not synonymous in the Fifa community and are implemented very differently! 

Trading is something we would consider very short-term usually within 24 hours. An investment can sometimes take days or even week to make good profit! 

Trading cards is completed by buying cards as they fluctuate throughout the day. This is often seen with special cards and labeled as "day trading or flipping". It's important to remember that cards do not stay at one price all day. The possibility of thousands of cards being listed at 1 price all day is nearly impossible. Instead, they fluctuate naturally as supply and demand varies. 

I've attached a graph showing a large fluctuation in a Fifa 20 special card (Birthday Eggestein) 

Eggestein fluctuated well because he is used for SBC's. If he became a cheap card to use for the SBC he naturally rose as people completed it! 

As you see, he fluctuated all the way from 19K to 30K in one day. Imagine if you bought 5 of them. That's ~50K profit on one card alone in on day! 

Trading doesn't only have to be special cards and can also be completed with gold cards if you understand how they move. For example, to start Fifa each year A LOT of people complete the Advanced SBC's to get their initial coins up. 

Cards that are used to complete this SBC tend to fluctuate very well! 

Attached is the daily (widespread) chart for a commonly used SBC card in Fifa 20 (Gabriel, GK). As you see, he often had fluctuations from around 500c all the way upwards of 2K at times. 

He's really good to use for SBC's due to his Brazilian Nationality in a top 5 league, but we'll get to that more later ;) 

Again, trading is meant to be quick and efficient coins. It often produces a small return on investment (ROI) compared to investing, but you can multiply it quickly! 

Investing on the other hand is meant to produce a larger ROI, but also requires a longer holding period. We also aim to invest with a specific intent. 

For example, let's imagine on a Sunday that Martial scores a hat-trick. We know that he would likely feature in a TOTW on Wednesday. If he does, his gold card would go out of packs and be replaced by the TOTW. 

His gold card would go up in price as it no longer has any supply, so if we invested beforehand we would make great profit. 

This works really well for cards that are used in SBC's as well! For example, investing in TOTW cards while they are in packs often produces great results. Since TOTW cards are required for SBC's they rise well when featured! 

If an 83-rated TOTW card is valued around 13K in packs, it can often climb to ~17K after a week depending on the content released! 

Trading and investing are different. One is not better than the other in my opinion, but doing a mix of both tends to produce the best results. As we start Fifa 21, trading is key until you have at least 500K to make some longer term investments! 

Investing can be great on a large budget when you know something may have the ability to double your coin total. It may be a situation where you invest 1 million coins and return with 2 million coins after waiting a week! 

One of the primary negatives regarding investing is that you often need to buy hundreds of cards to see the best results. By doing so, you enter unassigned, which means you cannot open packs. This is really detrimental to those of you who look forwards to red player picks each week, so make sure you're aware of that before entering the unassigned abyss! ;) 

It all comes down to what you enjoy, how much time you have and how you like to play Fifa! 

We will aim to outline both trading and investing techniques that allow you to make coins however you prefer! I do encourage you to get familiar with as many concepts as possible to have the best results! 

Hope you all are having a great first few days here! 

Jake