I wonder if you have a Herms Birkin handbag in your cupboard somewhere. If so, you might want to dig it out. Odds are it is one of the best investments you ever made.
Prices for new Birkins start at $4,200. Last year, says Barbara McMahon in The Times, bidding for a 2012 crocodile-skin Birkin hit $106,000.
A grey-blue and green leather 2013 model went for $32,500 and a 2010 "shiny electric blue" began at $30,000 and went for $81,250. This is no longer unusual.
Subscribe to MoneyWeek
Subscribe to MoneyWeek today and get your first six magazine issues absolutely FREE
Sign up to Money Morning
Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter
Don't miss the latest investment and personal finances news, market analysis, plus money-saving tips with our free twice-daily newsletter
What, you might wonder, is going on?It's partly because some handbags (the Birkin being an obvious example) are really nice. But it is also down to scarcity.
Herms "cultivates rarity by releasing the handbags in limited quantities and on unpredictable schedules" (this may sound familiar to those of you who remember the Beanie Babies craze).
The result? Most women who want one end up on an 18-million-strong waiting list for a custom-made version and "secondary handbag sales" have become a "global phenomenon".
You will think this silly. Why would anyone be stupid enough to pay $100,000 for a handbag, let alone a second-hand handbag? It's a fair point. But the handbag market is just another symptom of the way in which all markets are priced.
This week, the Bank for International Settlements warned that valuations in "euphoric" financial markets have "become detached from reality".
All asset classes have been rising as one (gold, oil, wheat, stocks and bonds together), and it is hard to find an indicator that tells you that buying into many of them even a handbag made from the single skin of a large ring lizard ($37,500) is a good idea.
Take the US, the most highly valued of the developed markets. The FT's James Mackintosh notes that on the face of it the average price/earnings (p/e) ratio is still lower than during the dotcom bubble.
But dig deeper and you find that the median p/e is higher than it was: in the late 1990s, a few stocks went to insane levels and dragged the simple average up. Today all stocks are equally expensive. Outside the likes of Japan and Russia, there are no bargains.
I discuss the difficulty of this in with Aberdeen Asset Management's Anne Richards. But what do you do about it particularly now you can put up to £15,000 into an individual savings account (Isa) each year?
Our cover story runs through some options, and there are strong arguments for hanging on to solid dividend-paying stocks what Robin Angus at Personal Assets Trust calls "compounders". But bear in mind too that there isn't anything wrong with holding cash inside an Isa.
It might not pay much by way of interest (investing platforms are remarkably ungenerous on this score). But it does give you optionality: the ability to buy when easy money comes to an end (as it surely will) and prices eventually fall (as they surely will).
-
The top stocks in the FTSE 100After a year of strong returns for the UK’s flagship index, which FTSE 100 stocks have posted the best performance in 2024?
-
A junior ISA could turn your child’s pocket money into thousands of poundsPersuading your child to put their pocket money in a junior ISA might be difficult, but the pennies could quickly grow into pounds – and teach them a valuable lesson about money
-
Beat the cost of living crisis – go on holidayEditor's letter As inflation rages, energy bills soar and the pound tanks, what’s a good way to save money this winter? Go on holiday, says Merryn Somerset Webb.
-
How capitalism has been undermined by poor governanceEditor's letter Capitalism’s “ruthless efficiency” has been undermined by poor governance, a lack of competition and central banks’ over-enthusiastic money printing, says Andrew Van Sickle.
-
Don't be scared by economic forecastingEditor's letter The Bank of England warned last week the UK will tip into recession this year. But predictions about stockmarkets, earnings or macroeconomic trends can be safely ignored, says Andrew Van Sickle.
-
The biggest change in the last 17 years – the death of the “Greenspan put”Editor's letter Since I joined MoneyWeek 17 years ago, says John Stepek, we’ve seen a global financial crisis, a eurozone sovereign debt crisis , several Chinese growth scares, a global pandemic, and a land war in Europe. But the biggest change is the death of the “Greenspan put”.
-
The wolf returns to the eurozone’s doorEditor's letter The eurozone’s intrinsic flaws have been exposed again as investors’ fears about Italy’s ability to pay its debt sends bond yields soaring.
-
Things won't just return to normal – that's not how inflation worksEditor's letter You might think that, if inflation is indeed “transitory”, we just need to wait and everything will return to “normal”. But this is a grave misunderstanding of how inflation works, says John Stepek.
-
Car hire and the strangeness of the post-pandemic economyEditor's letter A global shortage of hire cars and unusually high hotel occupancy rates sum up the post-pandemic global economy in a nutshell, says Merryn Somerset Webb, with enhanced demand meeting restricted supply.
-
Why we need to get a grip on our governmentEditor's letter Our government is trying to do too much, enacting policies that are destructive to the private sector. It needs to drop the the feel-good nonsense and create policies that lead to long-term wealth, says Merryn Somerset Webb.
