Every other news story is ‘worst since 2009,’ yet the official numbers out of the government propaganda arms suggests we’re booming. What sort of Orwellian nonsense is going on here? How could all the actual, individual, data be bad, yet government GDP and payrolls keep showing zero signs of wear?
In the latest string of bad events to hit the economy, Sotheyby’s just presided over an embarrassing impressionist and modern art auction, where revenues came in well below estimates and 61% below last year. Moreover, 21 out of 62 works of art went unsold. It was crickets all day long at the famed auction house.
Sotheby’s sold $144.5 million of Impressionist and modern art, its worst showing at an evening sale in the category in New York since the 2009 recession and the latest evidence of a cooling auction market.
The auction capped a wild day that began with Sotheby’s reporting a larger-than-expected loss in the first quarter. The company’s shares fell as much as 8.5 percent before rebounding to a 6 percent gain on news that an unidentified investor may boost its stake to 10 percent.
Monday’s sale fell short of the presale target range of $164.8 million to $235.8 million and marked a 61 percent drop from a year earlier as 21 of the 62 lots went unsold. One bright spot was the the top lot — Auguste Rodin’s marble “L’Eternel Printemps,” which sold for $20.4 million including buyer’s premium, handily outperforming the presale estimate. A day earlier at Christie’s and Phillips, those auction houses also did a fraction of business compared with last May.
The high-end art market “appears to be going through a correction,” Taposh Bari, an analyst at Goldman Sachs Group Inc., said in a note last month.
Derain, Picasso
The biggest casualty at Sotheby’s was Andre Derain’s painting of a red sailboat, estimated at $15 million to $20 million. It didn’t get a single bid in the Upper East Side salesroom. Works by Pablo Picasso, Paul Gauguin and Pierre-Auguste Renoir also flopped.
Shares of BID have been under pressure for me more than a year now.
All of my money is in Nick Mason’s classic car fund. Is this incorrect?
If I could short 50s/60s/70s muscle cars, I would pile into that trade. Nothing personal against them, but their demographic is aging and dying off…
Now the rich feeling the pain. Boo hoo cant buy a banky that you have no clue what it means, but need to own cus the art consultant said it was hot.
Those introductory questions lend very well to my “public is being duped” theory. The masters thesis on that will be available once frozen liquidity food shortages begin.
In other news, Carl Icahn (through Icahn Enterprises: IEP) is a little bearish of late:
“As of March 31, 2016 , the Investment Funds’ net notional exposure was -149%. The Investment Funds’ long exposure was 164% (156% long equity and 8% long credit) and the Investment Funds’ short exposure was 313% (277% short equity, 36% short credit and other). The notional exposure represents the ratio of the notional exposure of the Investment Funds’ invested capital to the net asset value of the Investment Funds at March 31, 2016 .”
– IE Quarterly Report
So Icahn’s a legendary, bilionaire investor and he’s shorting like crazy. On the other hand, IEP’s long AND short positions lost money in 1Q16, so…
See if these M-f ers get a rocket day off these [marinated] gap futures
[keep in mind you peasant class, there are high level execs who know
what a joke the overall equity picture is while counting on you to accept
it. think about it]
Obama and Yellen put is in place. I have been banking coins by buying like a sheep. I will soon have gold toilets in my house at this rate.
I wonder if there is a generational change taking place where new zillionaires splurge their money elsewhere.
Well, try to buy an apartment in NYC or San Francisco for less than a zillion dollars.
Fly, BTFD! This is your kids’ kids’ stock, right? This will make your heirs more wealthy than the Great Emperor of Planet Zorg. No?
The art bubble deflation continues. There are limits to what even billionaires will pay for daubs of colored mud framed on wood sticks and cloth.
Seriously, the commodities bust has hurt the art market.
Classic cars etc… It’s interesting which old things are still valued and have high market prices. In my industry some things that were tossed in the dumpster in the ’70s or sold for $150 now command thousands or as much as 35 K.
It’s tough enough to trade
without trying to figure out if the data is BS