A fine art: Investing to beat inflation

Paintings a solid investment

As the stock market slump, cost-of-living crisis and the highest inflation rates for 40 years cause jitters among investors, alternatives have frequently been touted as a way to ride out the storm.

The alternatives sector is a broad church, ranging from physical infrastructure to music royalties. Fine art has been used as a story of wealth for hundreds of years, and remains an asset class to beat among the proliferation of other alternatives that have sprung up over the years. In the equities market, the S&P 500 index lost almost one-quarter of its value between 4 January and 30 June this year, while the FTSE 100 index is down 2.5% in the year to date and the Bank of England expects a UK recession to begin in 2022 and last until 2024. Sterling and the euro are both down by more tha...