Art Market Continues to Cool

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Beautiful Asset Advisors just posted their World All Art Tracking Index through November. For a second month in the row, the index has shown a decline and art continues to underperform US equities.  The index declined 1.7% for November, and was down 3.4% in October.

BAA reports

WEAKNESS CONTINUES IN THE WORLD WIDE ART AUCTION MARKET AS U.S. EQUITIES REMAIN STRONG

THE WORLD WIDE AUCTION ART MARKET CONTINUED TO RESPOND TO GLOBAL ECONOMIC AND POLITICAL UNCERTAINTY WITH THE YEAR TO DATE PERFORMANCE INDICATING A DECLINE OF 1.7% IN THE MEI MOSES® WORLD ALL ART INDEX. THIS IS A SLIGHT IMPROVEMENT FROM THE 3.4% DECLINE OF LAST MONTH. ART CONTINUED TO UNDERPERFORM EQUITIES IN 2012.

Our data collection and reporting efforts based on 43 Sotheby’s and Christie’s world wide auctions that occurred in November 2012 produced 616 repeat sale pairs from all seven of our collecting categories. These pairs allowed us to create the Mei Moses® world all art tracking index for November 2012 which produced the aforementioned 1.7% loss as compared to the closing value for year end 2011.

Source: Beautiful Asset Advisors/Mei Moses