Returns of Investment of Passion

There has been an interesting article about investments of "Ultra High Net Worth Individuals" (i.e. the super rich  in the weekend edition of the FT. The graph below contrasts the returns of collectibles versus gold and  real estate.

Following trends are interesting to note:

• On the collection side, classic cars did much better than fine arts, although fine arts remains of course the most popular "investment of passion". Overall, collectibles enjoyed an outstanding performance over the last 10 years.
• Within each collectible segment there can be strong price swings, which can be caused by following development:
  Inexperienced investor tend to to inest in secure big names, but as they grow more confident they expand beyond the security of big names.
  At first, this leads to a strong increase in big names and then to a strong drop of those big names. 
• A big shift of wealth is occurring from the old world (Europe and the US) to the new world (Asia, BRIC) 
• Property prices exhibit this shift.
  While property prices in New York only increased 72% over the last 10 years, prices in Hong Kong tripled. 

An important detail to keep in mind is the fact, that collectibles make up only 4% of the super rich's asset.

Also, Bob Shiller stated that a home is not a good investment in general, since the value of a building is depreciating over time: