11 Unusual Investments that are Reinventing the Market

11 Unusual Investments that are Reinventing the Market

Investors are always looking for complex new instruments to trade, invest and generate profits. Nonetheless, some of these economic bets are surprisingly simple and yet they are still capable of generating great returns. They are simply not the traditional investments we are used to see. Bloomberg Markets magazine recently published a study outlining some of the strangest, but highest-performing investments of the past two years. From collector-oriented luxury wines to pork, these products have made exceptional returns. One of these investments even rose 465% in just one year, and you wouldn’t imagine what it is!Take a look at some of the most extravagant investments that are making a fortune in the market:

Investing in luxury wines

Although wine has been underperforming in recent years, with an annualised growth rate of 9.6% in the overall market, a vintage wine of a specific type is doing exceptionally well.Wines such as Chateau Pavie, from Bordeaux, for example, have performed particularly well on their 2004, 2001, 1999 and 1998 harvests. To give you a fact, a bottle of 2004 Chateau Pavie increased in value by 14.3% in one year, not counting what it may go up in the next.Investing in wine may sound crazy, but if you know how to choose your cards, it can put a few euros in your pocket.

A Grand Prix racing car

Classic cars were a great source of capital gains for investors, with a three-year annualised return of 21.0% and an annualised return over the past year of 40.7%.The 1954 Mercedes Benz W196 Grand Prix race car sold for an astronomical $29.5 million at an auction to a private buyer who declined to disclose his name. This car was used by Formula One driver Juan Manuel Fangio, and it is precisely these details and peculiarities that make the car soar in value.

Vintage Ferraris

In the same category of classic cars, some Ferraris from the 1950’s and 1960’s made high returns on investment. A 1967 Ferrari GTB NART Spyder sold for $27.5 million, and several others fetched between $10 million and $20 million.

Contemporary art

Marcel Duchamp

Contemporary art, until recently heavily undervalued, was another mediocre investment opportunity at the time, now taking off, but with some exceptionally high outliers. Among them was the work of artist Marcel Duchamp. His artwork had a huge one-year return of 465% and a three-year annualised return of 93.8%. Certainly an element to be reckoned with.

Vasudeo S. Gaitonde

The second-best performer in contemporary art was the Indian painter Vasudeo Gaitonde. His paintings rose by 198.1% over one year and his yield by 83% over three years.A painting from 1979, something truly modern for the art world, sold for $3.8 million at auction in Mumbai. His work has been especially popular in the Indian art market.

Jackson Pollock

A painting by Jackson Pollock was sold last year for $58.3 million, a juicy figure indeed. The American painter, known for his drip painting style, saw his work increase in annual value by 320 per cent and an annualised three-year return of 57.5 per cent.

The world of rare coins, the opportunity of numismatics

The market for ancient coins, also known as numismatics, has always existed, and has found people willing to invest their capital as a safe haven. On average, rare coins have experienced gains of 13.2% in three years and 10.1% in one year.For example, a British coin from 1559 returned 27.3% per year and a three-year annualised return of 26%. Other coins from the 1500s and 1600s had similar three-year returns of over 20%. There are also South African gold coins that are extremely popular with investors and collectors. Seize the opportunity.

Pork futures

Lean pork represented a major source of pork in the United States, and proved to be the winning investment in agricultural commodities through the financial futures related to this product.These futures gained 56.3% over the last year and 11.5% annualised over the last three years. And now wheat, oats, soybeans and other food commodities are following in their wake.

Soybean meal futures

If you missed out on the high returns of pork futures, investing in soybean futures was the best investment alternative in the agricultural sector.This variety of soybean had an annual return of 18.5% outperforming returns in livestock, rice or timber related products. Watch out for the Chinese market, because they are taking a huge amount of shares in this strategic asset.

SSD and USB storage drives

Data storage drives such as SSD, HD and USB hard drives were very successful in real estate investment trusts, with a three-year annualised return of 21.2% and a gain in the last year of 16%.Some of the best performing companies in the sector were Space Storage Inc. with a three-year gain of 36.7%, Sovran Self Storage with 27.2% and CubeSmart with 21.3%.

Vintage stamps and classic philately

Stamps enjoyed enormous popularity in the past, but soon after fell into a dark age where people shunned them. Given that they are disappearing, it is clear that those in circulation in the hands of collectors will tend to rise in value across the board.  Some models produced gains of 2.6% over the last year and 5.4% over the last three years. If you were lucky enough to invest in some of the more exotic stamps of the 19th century, your return could have increased fourfold.A Pale Straw stamp from 1867 has had an annual return of 26%. Other 1830s models have had a three-year annualised return of 23.7%.

Conclusion

These 11 investments, while unusual, have proven to generate high rates of return. Would it be possible to tokenise these assets to make it easier to invest in them? The answer is yes, it is possible to tokenise any of these 11 examples. By tokenising a Pollock painting, for example, it would be divided into thousands of parts, so that people with €100 could buy a proportionate share of the painting, and earn the return associated with the sale of the painting.This is Brickken, the possibility of opening up new investment opportunities to anyone in the world, at any time.