Muscle Cars- tangible investments, a sensible alternative to the 'mood ring' of the stock market.

Many tired of the stock market using your personal wealth to project the latest fears of institutional investors have already driven gold far beyond even the highest estimates prognosticators have proclaimed in recent years.  So much so, that the Sutter Gold Mine Museum is being sued by the mine operators to vacate so the company can restart operations for the first time since 1999.  No commodity, even gold can move into one direction forever.

It was 2009 when the stock market was sent on an emotional roller coaster ride, turning hard earned gains of a bull market into cow manure nearly overnight.  There were few places for people to turn, the real estate market was in a free fall and the collector car market was still on the path to correction from its own 2007 bubble burst.  Commercials to mail in your 'unwanted' gold moved from the 2am slot to prime time, right after Pawn Stars.  Meanwhile, the investment car market straighten itself out.  Those holding cars that were over valued or over leveraged took their lumps.  The price between a good cruise night car and a concours quality investment piece quickly diverged, taking their rightful place in opposite corners.  The gold market seems to be the one overheated while the collector car market is stable.  Quarterly price changes are plus or minus only a few percentage points, or reflect no change.  Still, the cash ready buyer seems to have the advantage.  

So now that stock and bonds are again up and down like a fishing bobber, and the trading floor more resembles a scene from Lord of the Flies, it is time to reel the money in from those useless cry babies.   Fear over Standard and Poor's downgrade of U.S. Treasuries is the reason du jour that sent the major indexes aplomb several hundred points.  Where did the boys-genius direct all the cash as a stop loss?  Yep, U.S. Treasuries.  Makes as much sense as S and P's AAA ratings of mortgage back securities just before the meltdown.

"The world, that understandable and lawful world, was slipping away."
- William Golding, Lord of the Flies

There are two kinds of opportunities that exist in today's automotive market- the first is buying a luxury item at a fraction of common market.  The other is to capture a unicorn, a rare one-of-a-kind collector piece that is normally NEVER offered.  One recent sale was a bit of both, an 18,000 mile unrestored, original paint 1970 HEMI Cuda sold in Monterey for $198,000 USD.  This is a car the seller worked on buying for five years before he brought it home.  Why sell now?  Any loss he'd take selling was a fraction of what he was gaining in another investment opportunity.  The new owner likely feels as lucky to get a pristine, superbly documented piece for cents on the dollar over the peak market price.

While others are watching the stock market, apoplectic, as the bobber dips on and under the water line, you will have an unduplicatable trophy gracing the garage.  An unimpeachable collector piece doesn't care when the adolescent boys of the trading floor turn on each other once again screaming "Kill the beast! Cut his throat! Spill his blood!"  Besides a vintage car looks way cooler in the garage, no matter what spot market says its worth.

~Patrick Krook