Investment comment
January 2011
Economic and market background
The sale of Roy Lichtenstein's Ohhh...Alright painting in New York in November symbolised the prevailing sentiment in financial markets during the closing months of 2010. The painting's title captured neatly the insouciance of investors in facing the various challenges that confronted them over the year, and its hammer price of $38 million seemed to bear witness to the heavy flow of liquidity still coursing through global asset markets.
Christie's, the auctioneers, remarked that Ohhh...Alright characterised "Lichtenstein's captivation and inspiration with techniques of commercial printing and reproduction". Had the words "Federal Reserve" been substituted for "Lichtenstein", those words could have been testament to the sorcery of the US central bank, such has been its efforts, via the printing of money, to 'reproduce' the economic growth and financial-market confidence to which the US was accustomed in the years before the global credit crisis.
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Investment comment
