daslog posted:

A few months ago, we were discussing how I am the legal guardian for my oldest grandchild and because she's under a guardianship she qualifies as an independent. Someone asked how much we saved I'm college tuition because of that rule.

For this Semester, she's going to the local community college, took 5 courses and all of them are covered by Pell grants. I think it's around $1000 per course so it's around $5k per semester.

She would also qualify for subsidized student loans, but I'm not sure how much that would be.

MJP posted:

This may be a bit esoteric, but if I'm thinking of buying a piece of art, should I consider it a long-term investment? It'd be appraised by a third party, but otherwise if it was to happen, it'd be through a legitimate gallery or auctioneer. Not an Old Master or anything, an illustrator from the 70s/80s.

laxbro posted:

I wouldn’t consider it a long term investment. Buy it because you like it and can afford it. Like anything you CAN make make money in the short term on price arbitrage but it takes a ton of time and effort to know what will flip quickly and what will take years to sell if it sells at all. Art prices are based on the stupidest things. There’s tons of amazing art that can be had for cheap and tons of terrible art that is “worth” 6-7 figures because the art sales industry made a concerted effort to create hype and scarcity around that industry connected artist.

I flip art as a hobby and generally target 3-400% returns on the art I buy. Buying through a gallery comes with gallery markup but sometimes can be the only way to buy art for a living artist. Auctions charge huge fees on both the buy and sell side but you can get incredible deals if you are patient and live in a wealthy metro area with lots of auction houses.

If you’re buying a piece that is 4 figures then it is probably worth it to buy a 1 month subscription to an art price database to check the comps for an artist. If it’s a popular/famous artist then also do your research to make sure it’s not a fake.

If you’re looking to spend more then 5 figures then you really should only buy through one of the major art auction houses where the provenance can be documented.

movax posted:

In a taxable account, for the 'typical' 3-fund configuration, I want to be going for Vanguard ETFs like VT, not mutual funds like FSKAX / FZILX / etc, correct? The former (ETFs) will be more tax-efficient, but I suppose I should go compare the ERs of those funds.

movax posted:

In a taxable account, for the 'typical' 3-fund configuration, I want to be going for Vanguard ETFs like VT, not mutual funds like FSKAX / FZILX / etc, correct? The former (ETFs) will be more tax-efficient, but I suppose I should go compare the ERs of those funds.

Fezziwig posted:

Speaking of art as an investment, what are everyone's thoughts on Masterworks? It's a website that allows you to buy "shares" of art.

I assume, like most things advertised on podcasts, that it's overpriced at best and sketchy as hell at worst.

Fezziwig posted:

Speaking of art as an investment, what are everyone's thoughts on Masterworks? It's a website that allows you to buy "shares" of art.

I assume, like most things advertised on podcasts, that it's overpriced at best and sketchy as hell at worst.

Happiness Commando posted:

Sounds like a scam

daslog posted:

What could possibly go wrong with slicing up and securitization of assets?

Motronic posted:

If it doesn't require a specific insurance rider or policy its not something you should be gamifying "net worth" calculations with.

I also really doubt you're talking about the level of "art" that sits in free trade zones and never gets taxed. Or goes on loan to major galleries or museums. That's the kind of thing that I suppose your family office calculates into net worth. Not anime prints you're gonna hang on your wall.

Fezziwig posted:

Speaking of art as an investment, what are everyone's thoughts on Masterworks? It's a website that allows you to buy "shares" of art.

I assume, like most things advertised on podcasts, that it's overpriced at best and sketchy as hell at worst.

pseudanonymous posted:

Someone was talking about it in the actively mismanaging your investments thread.

Strong Sauce posted:

my animation cel of fat sonic from the original cartoon will be worth millions someday, millions!

i think one of the BFC mods dabbles in masterworks so maybe they'd like to chime in.

the system uses a hedge fund model of 1.5 annual fee, 20% off the top of sales.

i've looked at the pieces the site has sold.. the company seems to obfuscate which pieces they've sold (maybe worried about competition/data?), they almost always never mention the exact piece that sold, just the artist's name i was able to figure out the sales for 5 pieces and the lowest return i saw was ~10%, highest was ~17% after all the fees were taken out.

so if you were involved in every single piece of art that sold (of the 5), you would be up a nice profit. but the trick though is that you don't know which pieces will be hot and which ones they'll eventually sell off. sometimes they sell pieces within the year, but most of the time its about 1-2 years.

not saying its a good investment, since i don't have any money in it and can't tell you how it looks in reality.. regardless, i would be real wary about doing this unless you have some extra money to play with.

got a link?

MJP posted:

Any recs for databases? FWIW, it's Hiroshi Nagai, not sure if he fits into popular/famous enough to determine fakes. I'm trying to find out if he even sells his originals or lithos.

quote:

The Embrace has conjured other images for some commentators, with many finding sexual innuendo in its representation of disembodied limbs. Seneca Scott, a cousin of Coretta Scott King, wrote in Compact magazine that the sculpture “looks more like a pair of hands hugging a beefy penis than a special moment shared by the iconic couple.”

a bad investment posted:

We are "testing the waters" under Regulation A under the Securities Act of 1933. 

Leperflesh posted:

My wife used to work for an investment company owned/run by a very wealthy family (like, billionaires). The main part of their business was directing funds to charities, it was a philanthropy thing, but they also managed the family's warehouse, which included storage of a significant part of their art collection. They actually had a full-time curator whose job was to keep track of the art, make sure it was stored safely and securely, etc. The art investment is lucrative for them because they have thousands of pieces, and they're by world-famous artists. Vermeers and Van Goghs don't go down in value over the course of decades. There's also multi-millionaires - a-level actors, CEOs of community banks, etc. - who aspire to be or at least look like billionaires, filling their third homes with dozens of items that cost $100k+ each or something. It's performative and lifestyle-affirming as much as it is investing, but they can actually afford things that are already really well established as "famous" and while what's in style changes from year to year, their money is pretty secure - although they're the ones most likely to buy a top-tier forgery for a million bucks, they're also the ones who ever even have an opportunity to buy some poo poo stolen by the nazis or looted from a colony in the 18th century too.

There is another world, which I've had several short interactions with due to my wife's art practice and art-people social circle, which I like to think of as c-suite-grade art. High-comp white collar folks like VPs at medium-sized corporations and random JAG basketball pros, but also ranging down to the level of dentists, financial advisors, and real estate agents. Maybe ranging up to C-level actors, congressmen, etc. People who can afford to drop $10k on an artwork without thinking too much about it, but who aren't really able to amass collections worth tens of millions+. They seek out stuff that is either name brand but less expensive (Picasso, for example, was incredibly prolific, so there's a lot out there in the $10k range) or they're looking for the "next big thing", artists who are showing in major galleries, showing up in the art magazines, but are still affordable to these guys. They get heavily sold to by gallerists and curators. Some of them actually invest a lot of time into learning about and understanding the art world, and those are cool because they're genuinely looking for things they like, not just sealing stuff in shrinkwrap to stuff in a storage room. Others are just engaging in what their economic status and peer group do, they probably still have opinions about art but they're not highly knowledgeable. They mostly buy paintings, they buy what their trusted experts tell them to buy, and in the long run many of them do fine with those investments if they're not too gullible. Many of them also lose tons of money, but they could afford to lose it so whatever.

Then there's a third world of people who can only afford like maybe $1k a month in art spending or less, often a whole lot less. They're the vast majority of the art-buying market, in terms of dollars spent and amount of art bought, but they also have the least influence on what's "in style" or popular in the "art world" at any given time. They buy certified limited edition artist prints. They buy art off the wall of lighthouses and bridges at seaside galleries. Some of them buy $4 paintings at garage sales and antique stores hoping to get lucky. This is not investment, even if this kind of buyer thinks they are investing. This is collecting. It's fine. It's how the great majority of struggling artists selling to the public get their rent paid. There's millions of amazing, brilliant artists who will never be in a major new york gallery, their work will never be sold by Christies even after they're dead. But there's still some opportunity for them. They can get work into shows at small-time galleries, they can get a one-page spread in Ceramics Monthly, they're still taking part in the bigger conversation that goes on between artists in the art world all the time. There's hundreds of magazines and publications that cover this world. My wife has work in a couple of books, she's had a piece on the cover of an anthropology magazine, none of that really translates into a significant income but just getting to that level means an artist is on the map.

The advice for each of these classes of buyers is different. Nobody here is in the top class but it's important to know that they're the ones consistently making bank on art. They're also the ones who stuff some of the world's most important works into private spaces where nobody ever gets to see them, and that sucks rear end. Literally warehouses full of masterpieces.

In the second class we might have a goon or two I guess. If you can drop $50k a year on art, you can be careful, invest a lot of time into learning about the art world, and take a gamble on a few pieces that could appreciate over decades. You should probably focus on work you like, and you should definitely be getting your work expertly appraised and insured. There's some overlap between this one and the third class below, of course, no hard boundaries. If someone says they're flipping paintings in the $5k-$10k price point regularly and profitably, I wouldn't assume immediately that they're a liar. But they need to be domain experts in some narrow area, and there's definitely substantial risk.

In the third class the best advice is to buy what you like, enjoy it, and look at it as a hobby, not an investment. Sure, for some of your more valuable pieces, insurance is a good idea, but the insured value is not what you're guaranteed to get at auction. I'd encourage you to step out of the world of paintings and support artists in areas that tend to get short shrift - ceramics, multimedia sculpture, textiles, for example. These art forms have traditionally been shoved into a "craft" category. Part of their lower value is that they take up more room or are otherwise more difficult to show in a home - you need a plinth or shelf, not just some wall space. Buy things you can proudly display. Avoid "limited edition runs" of prints that cost hundreds of dollars. If your budget is $25 you can get a nice print from a struggling unknown artist that you'll enjoy just as much, and not be feeding into a commercialized, somewhat predatory marketplace that kind of resembles NFTs for how little actual value it produces and how much prices are set by manipulation and grift. You can also buy a beautiful handmade bowl or mug, and actually use it, because that's what the artist intended and you'll get regular enjoyment out of it. Functional art can be a really rewarding area to buy into.

Whole collections of art sold at estate sales can go for a couple thousand dollars or less, when the buyer put in tens of thousands over a lifetime. That's the norm.

Leperflesh posted:

My wife used to work for an investment company owned/run by a very wealthy family (like, billionaires). The main part of their business was directing funds to charities, it was a philanthropy thing, but they also managed the family's warehouse, which included storage of a significant part of their art collection. They actually had a full-time curator whose job was to keep track of the art, make sure it was stored safely and securely, etc. The art investment is lucrative for them because they have thousands of pieces, and they're by world-famous artists. Vermeers and Van Goghs don't go down in value over the course of decades. There's also multi-millionaires - a-level actors, CEOs of community banks, etc. - who aspire to be or at least look like billionaires, filling their third homes with dozens of items that cost $100k+ each or something. It's performative and lifestyle-affirming as much as it is investing, but they can actually afford things that are already really well established as "famous" and while what's in style changes from year to year, their money is pretty secure - although they're the ones most likely to buy a top-tier forgery for a million bucks, they're also the ones who ever even have an opportunity to buy some poo poo stolen by the nazis or looted from a colony in the 18th century too.

Leperflesh posted:

My wife used to work for an investment company owned/run by a very wealthy family (like, billionaires). The main part of their business was directing funds to charities, it was a philanthropy thing, but they also managed the family's warehouse, which included storage of a significant part of their art collection. They actually had a full-time curator whose job was to keep track of the art, make sure it was stored safely and securely, etc. The art investment is lucrative for them because they have thousands of pieces, and they're by world-famous artists. Vermeers and Van Goghs don't go down in value over the course of decades. There's also multi-millionaires - a-level actors, CEOs of community banks, etc. - who aspire to be or at least look like billionaires, filling their third homes with dozens of items that cost $100k+ each or something. It's performative and lifestyle-affirming as much as it is investing, but they can actually afford things that are already really well established as "famous" and while what's in style changes from year to year, their money is pretty secure - although they're the ones most likely to buy a top-tier forgery for a million bucks, they're also the ones who ever even have an opportunity to buy some poo poo stolen by the nazis or looted from a colony in the 18th century too.

There is another world, which I've had several short interactions with due to my wife's art practice and art-people social circle, which I like to think of as c-suite-grade art. High-comp white collar folks like VPs at medium-sized corporations and random JAG basketball pros, but also ranging down to the level of dentists, financial advisors, and real estate agents. Maybe ranging up to C-level actors, congressmen, etc. People who can afford to drop $10k on an artwork without thinking too much about it, but who aren't really able to amass collections worth tens of millions+. They seek out stuff that is either name brand but less expensive (Picasso, for example, was incredibly prolific, so there's a lot out there in the $10k range) or they're looking for the "next big thing", artists who are showing in major galleries, showing up in the art magazines, but are still affordable to these guys. They get heavily sold to by gallerists and curators. Some of them actually invest a lot of time into learning about and understanding the art world, and those are cool because they're genuinely looking for things they like, not just sealing stuff in shrinkwrap to stuff in a storage room. Others are just engaging in what their economic status and peer group do, they probably still have opinions about art but they're not highly knowledgeable. They mostly buy paintings, they buy what their trusted experts tell them to buy, and in the long run many of them do fine with those investments if they're not too gullible. Many of them also lose tons of money, but they could afford to lose it so whatever.

Then there's a third world of people who can only afford like maybe $1k a month in art spending or less, often a whole lot less. They're the vast majority of the art-buying market, in terms of dollars spent and amount of art bought, but they also have the least influence on what's "in style" or popular in the "art world" at any given time. They buy certified limited edition artist prints. They buy art off the wall of lighthouses and bridges at seaside galleries. Some of them buy $4 paintings at garage sales and antique stores hoping to get lucky. This is not investment, even if this kind of buyer thinks they are investing. This is collecting. It's fine. It's how the great majority of struggling artists selling to the public get their rent paid. There's millions of amazing, brilliant artists who will never be in a major new york gallery, their work will never be sold by Christies even after they're dead. But there's still some opportunity for them. They can get work into shows at small-time galleries, they can get a one-page spread in Ceramics Monthly, they're still taking part in the bigger conversation that goes on between artists in the art world all the time. There's hundreds of magazines and publications that cover this world. My wife has work in a couple of books, she's had a piece on the cover of an anthropology magazine, none of that really translates into a significant income but just getting to that level means an artist is on the map.

The advice for each of these classes of buyers is different. Nobody here is in the top class but it's important to know that they're the ones consistently making bank on art. They're also the ones who stuff some of the world's most important works into private spaces where nobody ever gets to see them, and that sucks rear end. Literally warehouses full of masterpieces.

In the second class we might have a goon or two I guess. If you can drop $50k a year on art, you can be careful, invest a lot of time into learning about the art world, and take a gamble on a few pieces that could appreciate over decades. You should probably focus on work you like, and you should definitely be getting your work expertly appraised and insured. There's some overlap between this one and the third class below, of course, no hard boundaries. If someone says they're flipping paintings in the $5k-$10k price point regularly and profitably, I wouldn't assume immediately that they're a liar. But they need to be domain experts in some narrow area, and there's definitely substantial risk.

In the third class the best advice is to buy what you like, enjoy it, and look at it as a hobby, not an investment. Sure, for some of your more valuable pieces, insurance is a good idea, but the insured value is not what you're guaranteed to get at auction. I'd encourage you to step out of the world of paintings and support artists in areas that tend to get short shrift - ceramics, multimedia sculpture, textiles, for example. These art forms have traditionally been shoved into a "craft" category. Part of their lower value is that they take up more room or are otherwise more difficult to show in a home - you need a plinth or shelf, not just some wall space. Buy things you can proudly display. Avoid "limited edition runs" of prints that cost hundreds of dollars. If your budget is $25 you can get a nice print from a struggling unknown artist that you'll enjoy just as much, and not be feeding into a commercialized, somewhat predatory marketplace that kind of resembles NFTs for how little actual value it produces and how much prices are set by manipulation and grift. You can also buy a beautiful handmade bowl or mug, and actually use it, because that's what the artist intended and you'll get regular enjoyment out of it. Functional art can be a really rewarding area to buy into.

Whole collections of art sold at estate sales can go for a couple thousand dollars or less, when the buyer put in tens of thousands over a lifetime. That's the norm.

daslog posted:

Fidelity?

CubicalSucrose posted:

So we should all buy $10k Picasso's, got it.

Leperflesh posted:

Unsinkabear posted:

drat. SoFi has also been taking some big losses for a bit, right? Is that anything to worry about for people with accounts there?

hobbez posted:

Goldmans consumer division has taken steep losses and Marcus is under investigation by the fed. Obviously deposits there are FDIC insured and their HYSA doesn’t appear to be impacted but something to be aware of, and I know many goons have accounts there

hobbez posted:

Goldmans consumer division has taken steep losses and Marcus is under investigation by the fed. Obviously deposits there are FDIC insured and their HYSA doesn’t appear to be impacted but something to be aware of, and I know many goons have accounts there

drk posted:

Goldman's consumer losses and the Fed inquiry are unrelated. There's no reason to worry if you hold money in an FDIC insured account. Losing money is mostly a problem for equity holders in the money losing companies.

Mu Zeta posted:

I wonder if that's why Marcus is offering people a $100 bonus if you add $10,000 in new cash to your account and maintain it for 3 months. They probably need some extra cash for the first quarter to look good?

KYOON GRIFFEY JR posted:

They’ve done that in the past too but it’s probably for balance sheet health reasons