Collectibles are terrible investments

Post by djbusby » Sun, Apr 17, 2022, 2:51 AM UTC

kens wrote: post #30

wpietri wrote: post #4

I get the urge to collect, and I totally get why people feel their collections are valuable. But having personal feelings of value are not correlated well with financial returns! Indeed, as the Beanie Babies example shows, the more people have feelings of value the more incentive there is for others to profitably reduce the correlation. In high school I worked in a library. Every once in a while somebody would want t…

The other aspect of National Geographic is that people didn't throw them out, because they might be useful in the future for a school project or something. This was such a cultural factor that the Journal of Irreproducible Results wrote an article "National Geographic: The Doomsday Machine", projecting that the massive weight of saved National Geographics would eventually cause geological subsidence, flooding towns a…

Post by boopmaster » Sun, Apr 17, 2022, 2:54 AM UTC

allturtles wrote: post #7

I find this argument very strange: > But it is, because in the long run, assets without cash flows cannot increase in value more than the economy as a whole. If something appreciates faster than the whole economy in the long run, it eventually eclipses the whole economy, which is impossible. No one is operating on an infinite time horizon in their investments, so this argument seems moot. You can certainly find colle…

Post by quickthrower2 » Sun, Apr 17, 2022, 3:00 AM UTC

edgefield wrote: post #14

quickthrower2 wrote: post #9

I am sure NFTs perform terribly in the short term too, in aggregate. Most NFTs are not celebrity endorsed and will just languish even in the bull run. (Like most shitcoins). Real estate is in between IMO - kind of a collectable but there is cash flow but it doesn’t have the upside growth of stocks, unless it is some kind of rezoning or redevelopment. Gold is more like a collectable (no revenue stream) as is any other…

Sorry but real estate is nothing like a collectible. It has tangible value as a form of housing or for some commercial purpose (retail, office, etc.).

Post by dwighttk » Sun, Apr 17, 2022, 3:08 AM UTC

boopmaster wrote: post #93

allturtles wrote: post #7

I find this argument very strange: > But it is, because in the long run, assets without cash flows cannot increase in value more than the economy as a whole. If something appreciates faster than the whole economy in the long run, it eventually eclipses the whole economy, which is impossible. No one is operating on an infinite time horizon in their investments, so this argument seems moot. You can certainly find colle…

I wish I had bought more dual lands in the early 00s, when I started getting back into the game. I snagged a few volcanic Islands for $35 each, and Underground Sea was around $50 on eBay at the time. I thought it was "a lot of money" (and to be fair 2 me at the time it was a lot!) What are those now, $700 to $900? But yeah, like the article says: Taking care of things is hard! Which is why I store that kind of thing…

Post by bliteben » Sun, Apr 17, 2022, 3:34 AM UTC

djbusby wrote: post #58

Retric wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Stocks have a positive bias above overall economic growth in dividends. In other words if you owned 1% of the US stock market in 1980 then without luck or skill you could turn that into owning more than 1% of the stock market in 2020.

Really? It just feels like dilution from IPOs would make it less percentage than the original stake.