Investing in superheroes? Comic art as a new alternative investment

Fabian, Bocart, Christian Hafner, YUlia, Kaspershaya and Marti, Sagarra
Additional contact information
Fabian, Bocart: Jackson Heights, USA
YUlia, Kaspershaya: Universitat de Barcelona
Marti, Sagarra: Universitat de Barcelona

No 2019016, LIDAM Discussion Papers CORE from Université catholique de Louvain, Center for Operations Research and Econometrics (CORE)

Abstract: Drawing on an exclusive dataset of more than 106,000 items of comic art sold at auction, we build quarterly and semi-annual indices for American and European comic art. We find that this new type of alternative investment outperformed US and European equities and bonds. Between 2002 and 2017, annualized returns of US comic artworks clearly outperformed most asset classes with a solid 11% annualized return, while EUropean comic art achieved 25% yearly returns on average in the period after 2009. We show that comic art delivers significant diversification benefits to an investment portfolio thanks to low correlations with other assets and to the geographical diversification between European and American markets. These outcomes contrast with fine art in general, which delivered few diversification benefits when compared to equities and bonds between 2002 and 2017, and whose geographical markets are closely tied to each other.

Keywords: comic art; alternative investment; auctions; hedonic regressions; price index; portfolio (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C2 G1 Z1 Z11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019-09-01
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cul
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Related works:
Working Paper: Investing in superheroes? Comic art as a new alternative investment (2022)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cor:louvco:2019016

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