A Laughing Matter No More

The hit reality television shows, "Pawn Stars," and "Hardcore Pawn," may be more nostalgic than anything else at this point beyond their heyday, but the actual owner of the largest pawn store chain in North American, EZPW, may just be getting started. 

Amid a the last several years of decadence in tech stocks, the prior fascination by the American people with pawn stores (likely a lingering relic from the Great Recession, combined with other reality television series over a decade ago such as one about Repo Men, too) has clearly abated of late in favor of unbridled greed and speculation of a can't-miss TSLA/green/EV/crypto/AI future. Thus, the "Pawn Stars" and "Hardcore Pawn" shows became more about intentional and unintentional humor on the part of the stores' owners and customers, more than anything else. 

However, given the lingering pandemic, combined with the recent revival of NFT-motivated trading cards, antiques, art, collectibles, not to mention gold/silver coins, firearms, and visually anything capable of barter and with appreciation potential especially if we head towards devastation inflation, pawn shops may no longer be a laughing matter. In addition, stocks like EZPW can loosely track the price of gold, though not in lockstep. 

Hence, the long-term chart of EZPW, below on the monthly timeframe, illustrates a potential major double-bottom underway as Americans seem to either cash-up or find some diamonds in the rough of their own to store. The stock has been acting particularly strong on shorter-term timeframes of late. And despite Dollar General selling off sharply this morning, EZPW is green in a sea of market red. 

Going forward, as the American population becomes even more bifurcated in terms of the "haves" and  "have nots," I expect EZPW to gain more customers searching for creative ways to either get liquid or make unique investments in collectibles on a scaled-down basis, or both.