Four months have passed now. Things are still doing okay but April is the first month my account has lost value compared to the previous month. Today, in addition to the state of the project I'll develop a little bit more on the double booster quickflips and the lessons to be learnt there.

Before getting into more details related to this project, we are unlocking today the next article of the Nine Month of Portfolio Management Series. Part 5 - Investing in Modern.

In this article I discussed the result I got with the Modern positions, what I call the cyclical positions. Following natural trends of the Modern format, speculation with Modern cards has shown to be very positive with returns on many positions often in the +100% range.

Before we begin April's report, be sure to check out the following links (if you haven’t already):

• @100T1Y
• #100T1Ychallenge
• 1 Year, 100 Tix--January Report (to start from the beginning).

-7.83% in April

The upward trend has clearly stopped and April's results are a little step backward. This number could have been even worse considering that half-way through April I lost 12.72 Tix on the first DTK booster quickflip. Fortunately, the very next DTK booster quickflip turned out much better. Here is the chart for this month.

Summary of the Specs

This month I kept selling some of my Modern positions that finally turned profitable, namely Manamorphose, Figure of Destiny and Ethersworn Canonist. I still have some copies of Canonist and Figure. Prices seem to keep rising and I plan on unloading the rest very soon, before a potential reprint announcement in Modern Masters 2015.

I'm still holding several Modern positions. Many gave me mixed results so far but are getting better lately. Vexing Devil is on an upward trend since the end of March and I hope it will cross the 3 Tix bar where I'm looking to sell it. Smash to Smithereens and Enter the Infinite are in the same boat and I'll try to sell them soon as they become profitable.

In the buy section I bought two Mutavault. The M14 manland is at about its floor since rotation and might have new applications in Modern with all the dragon-related cards from DTK that actually appear to be playable in this format.

My Pauper picks clearly lost value this month. After spiking over 1 Tix, Mental Note is back to ground level. I missed that selling opportunity hoping for higher prices and even if I still believe in the card I might close this position soon if I don't see signs of a strong rebound. Innocent Blood, Flame Slash and the recently acquired Moment's Peace are not looking great either. I'm not in a hurry to sell these and I'll wait a little bit more to decide if it's worth keeping or selling.

Concerning my Standard positions, Temple of Enlightenment did wonders--I doubled up with it. Courser of Kruphix looks rather undecided, a week up, a week down. The effects on prices of Standard rotation start as early as right now on MTGO, and I'll probably sell my Courser in May before it dips further.

KTK prices are up by about 10% in average since the release of DTK. I could have/should have bought more KTK positions, however I only bet on Siege Rhino for now, a powerhouse in both Standard and Modern.

Lessons From The DTK Booster Quickflips

Two Moves - The Flop

The quickflip on the DTK boosters was supposed to be a smooth and easy way to generate Tix. Speculations with boosters usually yield moderate profits, in the magnitude of +10 to +20%, with the possibility to sink in a large amount of Tix even with a big bankroll. The risks are usually low since you can't lose it all on such specs--a loss of 30% is already pretty big for boosters.

The initial move here was to acquire DTK packs from Friday to Sunday right after the launch of Dragons of Tarkir prerelease events. This is the first weekend when the new set is available to draft and since boosters can't be used at that point to enter the events (only Tix are accepted) their value tends to be lower than when players can effectively use them to enter drafts.

Prices are expected to ramp up from Monday to the next weekend when the booster demand from players wanting to participate in the release events (accepting boosters to enter now) is at its peak. Selling then is supposed to yield some profit.

This strategy has been fairly successful in the past but not so much recently. DTK booster prices however rapidly dropped to the 3.0-3.1 Tix range, which is getting attractive for speculators for a one-week quickflip. I bought 24 DTK boosters at 3.18 Tix/each.

Up until this point, the theory was great. Prices of DTK packs had already risen to 3.6 Tix by Monday, suggesting the quickflip was about to be quite profitable the following weekend. Unfortunately the dream of a juicy quickflip stopped right there.

By Thursday DTK packs were as low as 2.5-2.6 Tix. I had decided to wait until the weekend since even after that big and unexpected price slide, packs are supposed to be higher on the weekend. They were. I sold my 24 packs at 2.65 Tix/each, a loss of 12.72 Tix.

Two Moves - The Top

By Wednesday, April 15th, DTK boosters were as low as 2.4-2.5 Tix, quite a fall from 3.6 Tix a week and a half earlier. Here I decided to give another shot at the DTK booster spec; I was in for another quickflip (I'll explain the reason why just below). I bought 20 new DTK boosters for 2.61 Tix/each. Four days later I sold them back with a 14.38 Tix profit, a 27% gain.

DTK packs actually kept climbing and reached 4 Tix the very next weekend. As you can see in the graph above from Mtggoldfish.com, price peaks always occur on the weekend and lowest points are always reached in the middle of the week, a recurrent trend for anything on MTGO.

Take Home Messages

The flaw of the initial spec was that the prize payout of tournaments almost all offered DTK boosters alone as prizes. The market got very quickly saturated of DTK packs and even the demand from the DTK release events didn't absorb that; hence the price of DTK packs fell.

Realizing the trend is the first step towards stopping the hemorrhage. Unlike cards, booster price trends tend to be very steady (up, down or flat) as long as they are drafted and offered as prizes. To stop the hemorrhage I had to sell my packs. I could have kept them for longer, waiting for a recovery or else. I could have lost more as well. I'm glad I didn't wait for another week (don't forget here that at that point in time I didn't know what was going to happen, the only thing I knew was that the market was putting a downward pressure on booster price).

Once you realize you are in the wrong fight you have to cut your losses and move on. Put your Tix to a better use rather keeping them tethered to a lost cause.

Unexpectedly, on Wednesday, April 15th, the booster prize payout got changed. Most of the tournaments that awarded DTK packs only now award DTK and FRF. The supply of DTK was decreased. The parameters of the equation have changed, and with them I have to change my view on the DTK spec; this is why I bought DTK packs again. I sold my packs the following weekend to secure my gains and free my Tix.

By the way, did you see what happened to FRF boosters price? The exact opposite as for DTK packs--FRF was very high and lost ground as more supply entered the market.

A losing spec on the previous week can turn into a winning one the following week. If the parameters change you have to reconsider your position and get in again if these new parameters make the spec viable again.

Thanks for reading and see you next month!

Sylvain Lehoux