Is the Panini Qatar 2022 album an investment?

album fever Panini Qatar 2022 it’s on. And it’s no surprise: it is the exclusive album about the most followed sport on the planet and a tradition linked to the Soccer World Cup.

Soccer is followed by millions of people and is the second most practiced sport, behind swimming. In Mexico there are 98 million soccer fans, according to Liga MX.

Mexico is a very lucrative market for FIFA, the organization that organizes the largest tournaments on the planet, and it is also for sellers of official products, such as the one offered by the Italian publisher Panini. The company, distributors, vendors and resellers benefit from this business.

Among the buyers, there are those who are far from completing the album for which 670 prints are required. Children in schools tend to exchange them and thus improve their chances of finishing it.

With adults it is different because daily activities limit this possibility, although there is more money to buy stamps. There are groups of exchanges on social networks, but the method of many is to buy until you get it, which can generate a very onerous expense that is not guaranteed.

A five-figure taste

In recent days, information was released about Paul Harper, a mathematician from Cardiff University, Wales, who calculated that to complete the 32 Qatar 2022 selections from the Panini album without making exchanges, you need to pay for a total of 904 envelopes.

The official price of the products to the public is as follows:

• Hardcover album without prints: 249 pesos

• Album with cardboard paste and two envelopes: 29 pesos

• Album with cardboard paste and four envelopes: 89 pesos

• Envelope with five stamps: 18 pesos

• Box with 104 envelopes: 1,872 pesos

The approximate amounts required for a fan to complete the Panini Qatar 2022 album exceed 16,000 pesos, more than 92 times the minimum wage in Mexico of 172.87 pesos per day.

If you buy the cardboard album with two envelopes, the amount allocated to this task is 16,265 pesos and with four envelopes it even goes up to 16,289 pesos. For collectors, completing the thick cover edition would imply paying 16,521 pesos.

Although there is the same possibility of finding any of the stamps, the less fortunate are those who suffer to get great figures such as the Argentine 10 Lionel Messiwhose sticker is resold for up to 2,000 pesos in Mercado Libre.

There is no way of knowing how many people would be willing to pay that amount to add Messi or Cristiano Ronaldo in their collections, but this and other such high offers on sales sites have inquiries from potential buyers to resellers.

To prevent consumers from having to go to resale to complete their albums, Panini opened the option of requesting up to 50 missing prints for five pesos each. The last effort for this task gives an amount of 900 pesos.

Buy as an investment?

Although it is true that tastes and hobbies are subjective and therefore impossible to judge with parameters such as expensive or cheap, it is possible to analyze the idea that the purchase of the Panini album is an investment.

To be considered as such, an investment has the following characteristics:

1. Amount: Money required to purchase and complete the Panini Qatar 2022 album.

2. Profit: Profit from the sale, which must incorporate inflation as a variable.

3. Time: The horizon in which it is thought to sell it.

4. Risk: The possibility of losing money on the sale or not being able to sell it.

As with resellers’ stamps, complete albums from previous World Cups can be found on internet sales sites. On eBay, the user Paninidoctor sells those from Germany, Brazil and South Africa together for 12,000 pesos.

The highest price found for a album Panini on ecommerce platforms it was published by Doc7Collections, on eBay: 12,552.47 pesos for the album of Brazil 2014.

Considering Harper’s calculation, that 904 packs are needed to complete the album, the profit for a completed one is non-existent (in fact, it would represent losses with respect to the offer of the collectible product), and the profit for a finished one with trade-ins would be limited by the number of purchases that were necessary and the time it takes to sell.

The number of Panini album deals on the internet are evidence of a market with few buyers (low liquidity), which increases the risk of loss. In addition, the product has no intrinsic value and its raw material is sold for few pesos.

Investments from World to World

For the amount of money needed to fill the Panini album, you can buy assets that will generate returns and have historically done so. I’m talking about government debt, private debt, stocks, ETFs (exchange traded funds) on stock indexes and many other assets.

The most basic of the options in Mexico are the cetes (government debt), with a risk close to 0, a nominal value of 10 pesos per paper and a slightly lower acquisition price, which benefit from a Banxico rate of 9.25%.

With a greater risk, but proportional, are the shares, which generate value with the revaluation of the business and, in some cases, with the distribution of dividends. Walmex, the largest stock in the country, has grown 33% in four years to 72.23 pesos per paper.

Participate in ETF (traded funds) can be in some cases less risky than doing it in stocks and sometimes the most profitable. The S&P 500 stock index, the best in the market, maintains a four-year advance of 12.83% despite the recent wave of declines.

Let’s see some examples:

1. With 16,000 pesos, it is enough to buy 1,600 government papers at a rate of around 9.25%, which is slightly different depending on the term.

2. With 16,000 pesos at the current price, you can buy 221 shares of Walmex, which —in addition to the possibility of future growth— offers a dividend.

3. The Vanguard 500 Index, ETF, based on the Wall Street S&P 500 index, moves for 6,685 pesos. You can buy two with the value of the Panini, there is money left over and it distributes dividends.

No one can deny that soccer awakens passions and invaluable memories, the kind that live in hearts for a lifetime. Putting a price on those memories is complex, and making a profit is easier with proven activities.

jose.rivera@eleconomista.mx