Winners and Losers: A bad case of the Mondays for some; others, not so much
Rough day in the markets today. We saw it coming last night (we’ve seen it coming). Choose your loser.
But it ended on a high note, right? The champion U.S. Olympics Women’s Soccer Team was on hand to ring the closing bell at the New York Stock Exchange. So there were a few winners on Wall Street today. There’s no investment like gold.
Image via NYSE.
By the way, the opening bell was rung at the NYSE and remotely from Central Park by executives from Starwood and Sheraton. Apparently, they declared today to be GOOD (Get Out of the Office Day). Also, free wi-fi in Sheep Meadow, thanks to them.
Another big winner: Damien Hirst.
Seems appropriate for today. His pieces have incorporated death, drugs, and (financial) excess, with media running toward the prohibitively expensive, like that diamond skull, For the Love of God. Wonder how many of his collectors made their money using the complicated financial gymnastics that threaten to destabilize global markets.
And today Hirst bypassed the usual dealers and went straight to Sotheby’s. It seems as if he sensed his market might be drying up and he cashed out before it was too late. The sale raised $127.2 million–and there’s one more day to go in the sale, called “Beautiful Inside My Head Forever.” The most expensive piece was a preserved young bull, with golden hooves, golden horns, and a gold disc above its head that sold for more than $18 million. The Golden Calf. Sounds about right.
Filed under: anticipation, art, money
Tags: art, Damien Hirst, disasterful, golden calf, losers, New York Stock Exchange, soccer, Wall Street, winners
oh man, that’s tough. Look at their smiles. One of the worst days on Wall Street…
No kidding. I wonder if it wasn’t awfully awkward for everyone involved. Did the traders even bother to look up from the floor? Trying to think of a decent analogy. Maybe: It’s like being asked to break the bottle to christen a ship that’s sinking. (?)
[...] On Tuesday, I wrote about the financial mess on Wall Street, and pointed out that the gold-medal-winning US women’s soccer team rang the closing bell on Monday. “There’s no investment like gold,” I wrote. [...]