For
ages, collecting art for aesthetic pleasure, prestige and status have been an
occupation of the ultra rich. While sporadically astronomic art sales prices
come to our attention which suggest that art might be a very good investment.
Jianping
Mei and Michael Moses are the first to systematically document investment
returns in art: the Mei Moses Art Index. They created a database of repeated
sales of art in America between 1925 and 2004. Therefore they used auction
prices because of their reliability and public availability.
The
return on investment of art between 1955 and 2004 was 10.0%, just slightly
under the return data for the S&P 500 index. In addition, art outperformed
bonds, treasury bills and gold.
On the
downside art turned out to be more volatile than the S&P and of course
paintings are less liquid than shares, although their liquidity is increasing due
to the growing international market for art.
So art
can be a gainful investment, but it’s not without risks.
Ward Van
der Gucht
Jianping Mei, Ph. D., and Michael Moses, Ph.D., 2005, Beautiful Asset: Art as Investment.
Published by the investment management consultants association.
http://www.imca.org/cms_images/file_2033.pdf
I agree that art is less liquid than stocks, it takes at least 6 months to put a work of art for sale. This makes investing in art less interesting.
BeantwoordenVerwijderenFor me there exist two kinds of buyers, the investors and the consumers. I do not think art can be such a beneficial investment, the risks are too high to make sufficient benefits. It is very difficult to predict the future in this business, although many investors take the risk and only few succeed. I suppose investing in financial assets is more recommended.
Matthias van der schueren