Talking about Money, money

Howdy!

But then again, the Times of London warned readers about a scam by a company called Holland and Kobeck. While in the body of the article they write lines like the following:

Charles Saatchi, the art investor, recently sold Damien Hirst’s famous pickled shark — entitled The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living — for £6.25m. It was bought for £50,000 in 1991 — an average annual return of 45%.

However, returns from the art market in general have been less spectacular. Over the past 50 years, the Mei Moses Fine Art index has posted an average annual return of 12.6%, marginally beating the S&P 500’s gain of 11.7%. Over 25 years, the US stock market comes out on top with a return of 13.8% a year, compared with 11% for the Mei Moses index.

And

The British Rail Pension Fund invested £40m, or 3% of its assets, in fine art in 1974 to hedge against the risks of equities. By 1999, when it had sold the bulk of its holdings, its art portfolio had earned an average return of 11.3%

So what is it? Huh?

Also, if you're interested there's the Artfacts Top 100 chart, Kunstkompass, Joy Senack's PhD thesis defense, or if you are so inclined there are tons more.