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Art Bubble Pops As Sales Crash To Lowest Level Since ‘Great Recession’
zerohedge.com / by Tyler Durden / Mar 23, 2017
Just as Yellen & Co. has finally decided that ‘Everything is Awesome’ and started raising interest rates (the timing of which we’re almost certain was in no way influenced by the conclusion of the recent election cycle), signs continue to mount that global economies are not as healthy as the Fed suddenly believes them to be. In fact, over just the past couple of days we’ve highlighted a litany of negative economic data points including crashing bank loan creation, surging auto loan delinquencies and continuous deterioration of the retail sector, just to name a few.
And while the mega wealthy folks of the world are typically somewhat immune from the economic cycle, even they are suddenly taking a breather from purchases of multi-million dollar works of fine art which have collapsed to levels not recorded since 2009. Per Bloomberg:
Sales of art and antiques dropped 11 percent to $56.6 billion, according to a report released on Wednesday by UBS Group AG and Art Basel. The decline, on top of a 7 percent slide in 2015, wipes out the gains seen in 2013 and 2014, when sales reached an all-time high of $68.2 billion.
“It was quite a challenging year for the art market,” Clare McAndrew, founder of Arts Economics that prepared the report, said in a telephone interview.
Her outlook for 2017 is cautious, with sellers holding back as economic and geopolitical uncertainty continues in many countries. Buyers, on the other hand, may view art and antiques as “a relative safe haven amidst volatility elsewhere,” increasing prices for the works that appear on the market, according to the report.
The post Art Bubble Pops As Sales Crash To Lowest Level Since ‘Great Recession’ appeared first on Silver For The People.
Source: http://silveristhenew.com/2017/03/23/art-bubble-pops-as-sales-crash-to-lowest-level-since-great-recession/
