bdon

Some buyers are clearly unconcerned by short term though. Spoke to somebody earlier today who gave me this insight into his thinking. Money in the bank makes nothing, money invested in traditional equities makes nothing(more likely losses), money invested in anything else, well i just don't understand he says.

 

So i asked if he thought it would go up in value, he simply didn't care, it's mine, i own it and i don't plan moving he quips. Suppose it's difficult to decide on whether to buy now i teased, it might go down in value, you might be better to wait but then it may be sold. Yes came the reply and my savings could be worth less or gone up in smoke.

 

Oh did mention a few nice precious coins or such ilk, but he'd seen all that noise in the press, looked like someone doing an hard sell, how come if it's so good the price of gold's falling

Home "ownership" is, I would argue, now fundamentally programmed into the UK/USA mindset (and soon to be Asia). Attempts to model it in traditional ways just won't work. Logically we know that paying £x for an apartment (as I am considering) is ludicrous - but I will do it nevertheless as it is a place to live that require no future income stream in X years.

We have three primary classes in the UK: the Gentry (land owners for at least 7 generations), the Poor (social housing, social pay), and the Middle Class. The noise, as ever, is around the Middle Class as they aspire to the Gentry and hope to avoid the Poor.

I do believe the "price" of UK housing will fall, and given that inflation is 12-18mo away, it would appear to be nominal in the 1st instance. After that though, looking at the bald numbers will help little if, as I suspect, the cost of a pint of milk (for example) will be approaching £2 by 2011.

B

Do you want me to delete your account ?

sorry

DR BUBB - pay your hosting bills! ffs. the last thing I want to see on this forum is a russian twat pop up.

you have precisely three days to fix this

Merryn in this weekend's FT was promoting gold...

I have a very decent chunk in a gold etf so watching it slide back down to 8xx doesn't help but then again summer time is not really a trading time - it all come at the end of the calender year and financial year - Fall/Autumn should see some more moves

ART thread: A long term investment? Or short punt?

What are they cycles? How to choose investment art?

===================================

 

I have attended two major Sotheby's auctions in Hong Kong, and am fascinated with the potential for investing in Art:

 

+ Art prices jumped 18% in 2007, according to: http://www.Artprice.com

+ Some paintings have been sold for absolutely fabulous returns, like 100 times or more of the cost.

+ You get tax-free "dividends" through the pleasure you get in having it around you

 

Having said this, there are some drawbacks

 

- My initial work suggests that we may be at-the-peak or over the top of a long term cycle

- The big money is made by SELLING AT AUCTION, not in buying there

- It is difficult to spot up-and-coming artists, since art investment depends on more that pure talent.

Of greater importance is how good the arts (or his managers) are at promoting art, and how important

and artist becomes in a the "flow of art history"

 

A fascinating subject (to me), and so I hope others are interested too

 

== ==

 

CYCLES...

 

Sotheby's (BID) has already experienced the sharpest drop since 1999

 

Monthly BID Chart ... update : close-up-2008

TURNING POINTS:

: 1 : late 1980's stock boom

: A : End of Property downturn in the US& UK

: 2 : Peak of the Dotcom boom

: B : End of the Nasdaq/Tech stock bust

: 3 : Peak of the pre-subprime Stock boom

It sounds ultra-trite but art is not an investment in monetary terms, when it becomes that it becomes like BTL or buying corn ETFs. Art is all about passion - do you love it? do you understand it? do you resonate? look at the painting and look at the sculpture. drink the wine. eat the food. these "commodities" are human volatile passionate fashionable

sure, if you'd "bought a Banksy" (with all the associated fuck-shite inherent in that) then you'd be rich. I have one on my wall. A stencil over graffito that is peeling. Captured in a particular way.

Dr B, ur a decent dude but there ain't no charts for art.

With WTI at $124, gold could trade at $1,825 today without being particularly expensive.

TBH I reckon it's just summer dolrums, not expecting much movement until early autumn. Traders in london and NY are enjoying this unseasonable heat - they go out for drinks at lunchtime and leave early. The "credit crunch" has been avoided (cough!) so they're not playing.

Reckon gold will bobble around the 850-900 all summer and not really see any movement until the US elections, change in UK government, BRIC/AME event (whatever it might be).

for us goldies it's going to be long and hot until september - still, at least we get to enjoy the weather.

Dr Bubb, can we just split off the two sites (cross linking obviously) but brand and identity is terribly important

and green investors (eco + new) will have a different perspective from global investors

I know you are passionate about both but they are different.

delegate!

B

(not me, don't like hard work)

I like that, simple is sometimes more effective. This is turning trickier by the minute heh.

 

Heres how we are so far, I think its shaping up but I'm not sure if I should be messing with the fonts

or not.

 

it would work better if there was only one planet (less alien, more like earth) also maybe reduce the color palette - I know this seems odd. but I have seen very effective comms that use a palette of two colors (+ one alternate) and black & white.

shaping up tho!

less like the current "The Good Life" logo

the difficulty is in combining two very distinct brands and word-sets within one

generally I'm a fan of simple, eg (v.v.v. rough) attached