On January 28th, Artprice.com, a pretty reliable, yet clunky price database primarily used for European artists, has devised a way to measure the art “Players’ confidence” with their new Art Market Confidence Index (AMCI), live.
What’s become one of my favorite things is when a group or individual attempts to use an assessment created for financial services to gauge the art market. There are characteristics intrinsic to the art market which make this impossible (quickly: information asymmetry, absence of mark-to-market prices, no price standardization or transparency, costs, conflicts of interest, the fact that the art market is the largest unregulated money market, etc…).
So back to AMCI. All you have to do is go to their website and answer these 4 simple questions:
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According to you, would now be the appropriate time to buy art works? |
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YES |
NO |
INDIFFERENT |
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Is your financial situation better or worse than it was 3 months ago? |
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BETTER |
WORSE |
STABLE |
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In the next 3 months, will you expect the economic climate to be: |
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FAVORABLE |
UNFAVORABLE |
IDENTICAL |
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What do you expect art prices will be in the next 3 months: |
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RISE |
FALL |
STABLE |
You are then taken to this screen (link takes you into my account so you don’t have to share your info with ArtPrice or use LAUREN@IRVINECONTEMPORARY.COM and password – LAUREN) to see the live graph.
Looks like the Consumer Confidence Index doesn’t it? Generalized, and vague – self-fulling rather than foretelling. This indicator is not revealing. I just hope it will not influence behavior.
(confidence has decreased from -5.8 to -8.6 in the time it took me to write this)
