Mei Moses Art Index

In a report just released by Beautiful Asset Advisors, the Mei Moses World All Art Index with a year to date increase of 2.2%.  The positive indicator is also the highest the index has been since May of 2012.

The BAA report states positive sales in November, including the NY Imp/Mod, Contemporary and post war as well as sales in Hong Kong, British Paintings sale in London as well as strong Latin American sales all contributed to the positive results.  Keep in mind, the index is normally compared to stock indexes. When analyzing the returns for the current time periods, we see the returns from art failing when compared to equities.

BAA reports

GOOD NOVEMBER AUCTION SALE RESULTS MOVES WORLD ART AUCTION MARKET INTO POSITIVE TERRITORY FOR THE FIRST TIME THIS YEAR.  U.S. EQUITIES REMAIN AT THEIR ALL TIME HIGHS AND EASILY OUTPERFORM ART.

THE WORLD WIDE AUCTION ART MARKET IN NOVEMBER SHOWED AN IMPROVING RESPONSE TO THE GLOBAL ECONOMIC AND STOCK MARKET GAINS.  THE YEAR TO DATE INCREASE OF 2.2% IN THE MEI MOSES® WORLD ALL ART INDEX THROUGH NOVEMBER IS AN IMPROVEMENT IN THE RESULTS REPORTED IN OCTOBER OF A DECLINE OF 1.2% IT IS ALSO THE HIGHEST VALUE THE INDEX HAS ATTAINED SINCE THE END OF MAY 2012.©
 
November is the high point of the fall auction season.  The month featured major sales in New York of both impressionist and modern paintings (IMPMOD) and post war and contemporary paintings (PWC) as well as major sales of traditional Chinese works of art (TCWA) in Hong Kong.  There were also major Latin American paintings (LAP) sales in New York and British Paintings (BP) in London. There were country specific sales for Russian paintings in London and small old master (OLM19C) sales in London and Amsterdam.  We do not have enough data for Russian art to create a unique index so we only include these transactions in the All Art category. Our data collection and reporting efforts based on 43 Sotheby’s and Christie’s world wide auctions that occurred in November  produced 694 repeat sale pairs representing all but one of our collecting categories. These pairs allowed us to create the Mei Moses® world all art tracking index for November 2013 which produced the aforementioned 2.2% gain as compared to the closing value for year end 2012.  We need to point out that the tracking result is based on the assumption that all the pairs collected to date in 2013 are used to estimate the year end result assuming no other pairs are added to the database throughout the remainder of 2013.  Thus the November tracking result would be the calculated year end result based on that assumption.

Source: Beautiful Asset Advisors/Mei Moses Fine Art Index