I've been watching the overall markets and I attempt to be without prejudice. I have experience both in paper and online/digital, both as a power collector and as a dealer. Here's my overall meta opinion, based on what I have both observed and "felt":
1) The overall market on trading cards is increasing. The amount of dollars spread on the whole of all hobbies is increasing still.
2) During the February/March time, was a huge surge ("the surge") on certain things, mainly PSA graded/grade-able/grade worthy stuff (cheap cards with huge upside when graded PSA 8-10), and the sealed product that contained them (89, 90, 91, 92 junk wax and Marvel cards, base card RCs, etc.)
3) In my opinion, the surge was fueled by a large amount of money going to regular American people sitting at home in Covid quarantine (tax refunds filed in January, stimulus checks, corporate bonuses, etc.) all hitting at the same time...many of those sitting at home reminiscing about better days in 1991...that's why it was this sweet spot of 89-92 that was hit (the mega bucks spent on five and six digit cards in sports like NBA, many of these buyers are likely rich people and in foreign/overseas countries). A big part of this equation was due to the previous 8 year US presidential regime over-printing US currency to pay for policies, as I mentioned before.
4) The surge came back down to a big market correction for those sweet spot cards. Many of those cards went up, came back down but the return price is still higher than before the surge. So overall, while a PSA 10 card from this sweet spot may have gone for $350 before the surge, set a record of $1000 during the surge, it came back down to $400 now and will sell for likely $425 tomorrow. In the end, the card permanently went from $350 to $400+ in less than six months and will still grow more by the end of the year. (This goes for the wax too, that said card came out of, some surged and went back down a bit {for example Impel 1990 Marvel Universe; Stan Lee RC card} and some went up and will not go back down {1989 Upper Deck baseball, Low numbers; Ken Griffey, Jr. RC}. A lot of this has to do with the chances of popping a high grade copy of the said card from the sealed product. )
5) A lot of people burned during the surge will now adjust their buying habits and spread their money differently. They have some money to spend, not as much to splurge, and so they will concentrate on smaller/slower projects and really, buy a little smarter. Also, with the grading company backup/moratoriums, this holds up quite bit as much of the PSA craziness ws people buying sealed product for tons of money hoping to open grade-worthy cards for self-submission, with some quitting/deciding against such a course and just buying PSA 10 copies on the open market.
6) Thus we get we get much less spiky on smaller cards and yet we continue to get record setting prices on the big cards (one person saying Lebron is down, another showing yet another record price on a top Lebron single). Perspective.
7) Pokemon...still hot AF, the surge didn't affect this one way or another as the supply was already so limited, both new product and old. Little product could trade hands to affect prices. If Pokemon company responds as it should and reprints everything current by double, we may have a junk wax era for Pokemon....but the collector base is so big, they might be able to actually absorb it no problem. Currently a few collectors open a few boosters each so for rarer cards, most collectors have 90% zero copies, 9% one copy and 1% more than one copy...no one is able to open enough product to play the actual game (where you need close to 100% four copies of each good card for your decks).
8) Magic...steady and strong. The Time Spiral Redux set sold out like a Pokemon set...just insane. Commander cards are nuts and Wizards continuously prints new commander Legends to spark new deck ideas and thus new pools of cards are spiking every month it seems. Despite the fact that both Modern and Legacy are not played at all, people are buying up cards in anticipation of being able to play face to face again. The next most anticipated crazy set will be Modern Horizons II. Hopefully Pioneer will follow.
9) Soccer and oddball...international sports such as soccer/futbol will continue to surge and many of these collectors don't follow sports card traditions. They know PSA and that's about it. They will collect weird shit like Panini stickers and mini cards. Tennis is a sport to watch out for. As is any international star athlete personality such as Tony Hawk or Mike Tyson, especially if they were already a mega star in the 90s. Golf will make a big surge soon. Heck, earlier this year, PSA 10 Pro Set Platinum II Hockey, Fred Rogers base card was selling for $300+ (Mr. Rogers Neighborhood).
Again I re-iterate...I feel the people with money both have more fun and have more confidence in trading card company cardboard than with US currency.
