Tag Archives: Wealthy

“Tail-End Of A Big Bull Market” – Wine, Diamonds, Classic Cars Are Now Money-Losing Investments For The Ultra-Rich

Luxury assets of the ultra-wealthy, if that were expensive wine, fancy diamonds, and rare antique cars all had a down year as the stock market ramped to new highs, reported The Wall Street Journal.

In the last decade, luxury assets performed exceptionally well as central bankers handed out free money to the elite class to hoard assets of their liking. And naturally, these people, with exceptional taste, bought things that the common man has only seen on television.

Now, these luxury assets are under performing – have been during the past several years – and is a symptom of late-cycle distress.

“The froth has gone out of the market. People have realized you can’t just buy stuff and expect the value to go up,” said Andrew Shirley, a partner at Knight Frank and editor of the group’s Wealth Report.

The Journal blames the under performance on the global slowdown and the lack of Asian demand. Chinese buyers account for 33% of global luxury goods sales.

“There is a lot of uncertainty in Chinese markets and the riots in Hong Kong didn’t make it easy for people to come spend money in Hong Kong either,” said Eden Rachminov, chairman of the board at the Fancy Color Research Foundation.

Colored diamonds in 2019 lost about 1% in the first three quarters.

Fine wine was also another losing asset through Nov., lost 3.6%, according to the Liv-ex 1000 index.

And the biggest loser on the year were classic cars, lost 5.6%, according to Historic Automobile Group International’s (HAGI) Top Index.

HAGI founder Dietrich Hatlapa said the classic car market has been cooling following a massive rise in price after the 2008-09 financial crisis. He said classic car prices saw double-digit gains after the recession, rallying 50% Y/Y through 2013. “We are at the tail-end of a big bull market,” Hatlapa warned.

What’s becoming evident is that ‘Not QE’ and other monetary gimmicks deployed by central banks are failing to raise asset prices of some luxury goods in 2019. Perhaps the world is stumbling into a period where tool kits of central banks are becoming less responsive to stimulate asset price inflation, and if that is the case, then everyone will figure out that prices of luxury goods have been hyper inflated over the last decade with nothing but hot air.

Source: ZeroHedge

Wealth Of The Richest Surged By $1.2 Trillion In 2019

Ben Bernanke with Neel Kashkari

(ZeroHedge) At the same time that dipshits future Nobel Prize winners at the Fed like Neel Kashkari are walking around pondering why the inequality gap continues to widen in the United States, monetary policy has catalyzed another year of surging wealth for the richest in the country while keeping its boot on the neck of the poorest. 

In fact, as Bloomberg notes, the wealth of the 500 richest people surged 25% in 2019. And the riches are coming in atypical fashion.

Among those are social media giants like Kylie Jenner, who became the youngest self-made billionaire this year after her cosmetic company signed an exclusive partnership with Ulta Beauty. She sold a 51% stake in her company for $600 million. 

Similarly, the Korean family who helped popularize the Washington Nationals’ rally cry, “Baby Shark, doo-doo doo-doo doo-doo”, is now worth about $125 million.

Another great example is Willis Johnson, who made his $1.9 billion fortune by building a network of junkyards to sell damaged cars.

All of these are examples of just how much money made its way to the richest over the last 12 months. The Bloomberg Billionaires Index added $1.2 trillion, now placing their collective net worth at $5.9 trillion.

Only 52 people on the ranking saw their fortunes decline during the year. Jeff Bezos, for example, lost $9 billion – but only due to his divorce. 

Bloomberg noted the year’s biggest winners:

  • The 172 American billionaires on the Bloomberg ranking added $500 billion, with Facebook Inc.’s Mark Zuckerberg up $27.3 billion and Microsoft Corp. co-founder Bill Gates rose $22.7 billion.
  • Representation from China continued to grow, with the nation’s contingent rising to 54, second only to the U.S. He Xiangjian, founder of China’s biggest air-conditioner exporter, was the standout performer as his wealth surged 79% to $23.3 billion.
  • Russia’s richest added $51 billion, a collective increase of 21%, as emerging-market assets from currencies to stocks and bonds rebounded in 2019 after posting big losses a year earlier.

Newly minted billionaires included Anthony von Mandl, the man behind “White Claw” hard seltzer and Hong Kong’s Lo family, who are in the business of producing soy milk. 

With the market hitting new highs every day and President Trump’s relentless pressure on the Fed to keep rates low, the gap will likely continue to widen heading into 2020 – a year politicians will undoubtedly spend bickering about proposed solutions to the problem, all the while failing to understand that the alarm is coming from the inside, right before their eyes. 

The gains are an obvious continued indicator of flawed monetary policy that everybody – except those at the Fed (and Steve Liesman) seems to understand.

As a result, currently, the 0.1% control the biggest share of the pie in the U.S. than at any time since 1929.

Source: ZeroHedge