Are comics gaining more respect as a valid investment outside of the comic collecting community? 8 8

[Mr.Mcknowitall]

10 minutes ago, spreads said:

I work in fund compliance for a major investment firm;  comics are not considered an investment and at the institutional level never will be.  And please, stop referring to them as commodities - they are not!  A commodity is a consumable item, that is replaceable with other units of that class (Hulk #1 and Spidey #1 are not interchangeable). 

I had a 5 year old relative that would tear pieces off comic books and eat them. Over and Over and Over. It became such a novelty that other (equally odd ) relatives would bring comics to the 5 year old to experience the phenomena, and laugh themselves into a state of euphoria while feeding the kid. The 5 year old, now 44, is and has been for a number of years a comic book collector. So, the commodity thing is subject to interpretation.

[spreads]

5 minutes ago, Mr.Mcknowitall said:

I had a 5 year old relative that would tear pieces off comic books and eat them. Over and Over and Over. It became such a novelty that other (equally odd ) relatives would bring comics to the 5 year old to experience the phenomena, and laugh themselves into a state of euphoria while feeding the kid. The 5 year old, now 44, is and has been for a number of years a comic book collector. So, the commodity thing is subject to interpretation.

I get this is a joke and there's a pretty awesome Simpsons clip identical to this story, but no, it's not subject to interpretation.  It's pretty clearly black and white, and I print-off screenshots of Bloomberg defintions for the guys that posted it earlier in the thread. 

Edited June 23, 2018 by spreads

[Mr.Mcknowitall]

2 minutes ago, spreads said:

I get this is a joke and there's a pretty awesome Simpsons clip identical to this story, but no, it's not subject to interpretation.  It's pretty clearly black and white, and I print-off screenshots of Bloomberg defintions for the guys that posted it earlier in the thread. 

It is not a "joke". It is a fact. Paper, BTW, is consumable. I don't know Simpsons episodes from bupkus.

I am impressed by your institutional zealousness, though. It is Saturday. Relax and enjoy the day.

[namisgr]

On 6/22/2018 at 1:25 AM,  atomised said: 

The financial advisors I've spoken to have to idea of the size of the market and price of some of these books.  There's no money to be made in this for advisors so they don't cover it.  An AF15 is a more solid investment than a US Treasury bond.  High end books are a great investment vehicle and for those that are participating it's like belonging to a special club.

Except for the part with the full backing of the United States government.  And the part with the ability to liquidate in a minute or two.  And the part with the guaranteed return for a prescribed period of time.  And the part with the scale to handle up to tens of billions of investment dollars at a time.  

Other than those and a few other factors, it's AF15 all the way.  

[spreads]

12 minutes ago, Mr.Mcknowitall said:

It is not a "joke". It is a fact. Paper, BTW, is consumable. I don't know Simpsons episodes from bupkus.

I am impressed by your institutional zealousness, though. It is Saturday. Relax and enjoy the day.

Okay, well an equal joke would be to replace a 5-year old eating pieces of snake - does that make it a commodity?  Maybe we should list it on the CBOE   

[NoMan]

1 hour ago, Mr.Mcknowitall said:

I had a 5 year old relative that would tear pieces off comic books and eat them. Over and Over and Over. It became such a novelty that other (equally odd ) relatives would bring comics to the 5 year old to experience the phenomena, and laugh themselves into a state of euphoria while feeding the kid. The 5 year old, now 44, is and has been for a number of years a comic book collector. So, the commodity thing is subject to interpretation.

You know I gotta say, that gave me a good laugh on what is turning out to be a stressful morning.  Thanks. 

[Mr.Mcknowitall]

34 minutes ago, NoMan said:

You know I gotta say, that gave me a good laugh on what is turning out to be a stressful morning.  Thanks. 

 That is very kind of you.

I will one up your stress....change your tires, mount and balance, drive 100' and have the wheel come off...and all you wanted to do originally was have a nice relaxing cup of coffee after the tire change morning chore was finished.

[VintageComics]

11 hours ago, Aman619 said:

He got burned and had no answers back in 2008 like everyone else.

What happened in 2008 was obvious if you looked in the right places (rather than listen to mainstream news).

[Aman619]

Yeah. Obvious in 2009,,,

[Coolio McCool]

The general public has known for many years that certain comics are very valuable, I don't think public perception has changed much in that regard.

Ignoring perception, I'd say it's really questionable whether comics are a "valid investment"... and I'm saying this as a guy who spends thousands on comics. Buy them because you enjoy them, it's nice when the go up in value, but don't count on it. What really torpedoes the investment aspect is the cost of buying / selling. Unless you do a lot of work to track down buyers, you aren't going to be able to sell your collection at market price without paying 10-15%+ to somebody. Compare to the cost of buying / selling stocks which is a mouse click and $8 on each end.

[VintageComics]

49 minutes ago, Aman619 said:

Yeah. Obvious in 2009,,,

No, it was obvious leading up to 2007-08 to anyone who didn't listen to headlines or get sucked into the massive bubble that was forming. We even had a thread about it started by a boardie before the crash.

I had a close friend who was telling me it was going to happen from about 2004-2005 onward and that it was going to happen soon.

When it finally happened in 2008 everything he outlined happened.

The problem is that most people had rose colored glasses or (like me) just couldn't believe that the status quo could change and that major institutions would either make blatantly poor decisions or even go under.

Thankfully, I listened to him.

There were others out there that saw it coming but they were heckled because

• a) it didn't fit the public narrative
• b) there was lots of money to be lost if it was true
• c) there was lots of illegal stuff going on if it was true

Edited June 23, 2018 by VintageComics

[Aman619]

Ok whatever, Nostradamus!   

So when is the next crash? Or was that a one time thing you knew was coming?  And I love the part where he knew since 2004 it was coming. —-  4 years later.   I go around every day for years now saying a big correction is coming ... I suppose I’ll get some satisfaction saying “I knew it!”  too,  Guess that will make me feel good .

[eddly]

33 minutes ago, VintageComics said:

No, it was obvious leading up to 2007-08 to anyone who didn't listen to headlines or get sucked into the massive bubble that was forming. We even had a thread about it started by a boardie before the crash.

I had a close friend who was telling me it was going to happen from about 2004-2005 onward and that it was going to happen soon.

When it finally happened in 2008 everything he outlined happened.

The problem is that most people had rose colored glasses or (like me) just couldn't believe that the status quo could change and that major institutions would either make blatantly poor decisions or even go under.

Thankfully, I listened to him.

There were others out there that saw it coming but they were heckled because

• a) it didn't fit the public narrative
• b) there was lots of money to be lost if it was true
• c) there was lots of illegal stuff going on if it was true

I remember there being quite a few housing crash threads prior to 2008. Here is one I started back in 2005 (aman619 even posted in this thread):

 

Edited June 23, 2018 by eddly

[VintageComics]

26 minutes ago, Aman619 said:

So when is the next crash? Or was that a one time thing you knew was coming?  And I love the part where he knew since 2004 it was coming. —-  4 years later.

Well, to be fair I only met him in mid 2004 so I don't know exactly when he started talking about it that's why I put a date range. But his reasoning was sound and his time frame was reasonable.

Again, he wasn't the only one. As eddly stated, he started a topic on it back in 2005. I specifically remember another thread solely focused on the topic of the housing bubble crash in the Watercooler (circa 2005 or so) but I can't seem to find hide nor hair of it so not sure what happened to it. It was started by a regular board member (trying to remember his online name).

These weren't the only people. Small groups of people were decrying what was going on.

Peter Schiff was probably the most famous.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Schiff#Financial_crisis_forecast

Like I said, it wasn't a secret. People just didn't want to hear it.

 

[namisgr]

There's always investment pundits predicting that one market or another will crash.  Always.  That the even the blind squirrel occasionally finds a nut doesn't mean that they had any particular insight in doing so.

As for claiming that 'mainstream media' was responsible for pulling the wool over the public's eyes, that's just not supportable.  Investment analysts get their future projections wrong all the time, and they do so without any help from mainstream media.  Just look at the economic forecasting record of onetime investment pundit Larry Kudlow: 

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/15/business/larry-kudlows-not-so-on-the-money-predictions.html

The mainstream financial media are always reporting on these prognostications, be they ones that turn out right or wrong.  One look at the linked board thread from 2005 on the housing crash clearly shows that mainstream media was reporting years before it came to fruition that certain analysts thought the housing market was in a bubble and gave reasons for claiming so that later were shown to be valid.

Edited June 24, 2018 by namisgr

[Mercury Man]

If you take $15K in real estate equity, $15K in Gold/Silver, $15K in Mutual Funds, & a CGC comic you paid $15K for, presented them to a loan officer at a bank, told them they can only pick 3 for collateral on a loan, which 3 out of 4 do you think they would accept?

[Aman619]

20 minutes ago, namisgr said:

There's always investment pundits predicting that one market or another will crash.  Always.  That the even the blind squirrel occasionally finds a nut doesn't mean that they had any particular insight in doing so.

As for claiming that 'mainstream media' was responsible for pulling the wool over the public's eyes, that's just not supportable.  Investment analysts get their future projections wrong all the time, and they do so without any help from mainstream media.  Just look at the economic forecasting record of onetime investment pundit Larry Kudlow: 

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/15/business/larry-kudlows-not-so-on-the-money-predictions.html

The mainstream financial media are always reporting on these prognostications, be they ones that turn out right or wrong.  One look at the linked board thread from 2005 on the housing crash clearly shows that mainstream media was reporting years before it came to fruition that certain analysts thought the housing market was in a bubble and gave reasons for claiming so that later were shown to be valid.

Thanx.  People, learned or cranks are always “predicting” market swings. And we all do our best to separate the crazy from the reality.  Money managers, the media, your uncle, shoeshine boys, we all have to sift through it and make up our own minds. Vintage is smart and savvy, but claim8ng to have called the crash is to me over the line. Even if he sold all investment assets at the peak, which would make a compelling case of putting ones (ets) on the line for ones beliefs, it could just as easily been months or years premature to the actual blooodletting. 

[Aman619]

3 hours ago, eddly said:

I remember there being quite a few housing crash threads prior to 2008. Here is one I started back in 2005 (aman619 even posted in this thread):

 

HAha.  I was posting a lot more back then! What did I say? 

[eddly]

1 minute ago, Aman619 said:

HAha.  I was posting a lot more back then! What did I say? 

Have a look, its a fun read seeing the opinions from back then.

[Aman619]

Do I dare? I’ve read some of my old posts... it’s weird cause while the opinions sound familiar, im thinking, who is this guy?