Art, Wine, Cheese: Alternatives to Stock Investing

With the market zooming up and down like a demented bobbin, people who have money are looking for places to put it. As a public service, I can tell them where it should go.

1. Gold

People are buying it right now as a hedge against Europe and a leading analyst says that it will be at $1,500 an ounce by the end of the year. If it does, my mouth will be worth more than my portfolio.

2. Wine

My friend Henry bought several bottles of Chateau Latour a few years ago for $325 a bottle. Last week, he made a deal to sell them to a wine broker who will offer them, on consignment, for $5,000 a bottle. He believes there is a huge market for the haughty beverage among very wealthy nouveau-riche Chinese, who are especially fond of Latour. It is not uncommon for them to mix it with 7-Up.

3. Art

A Jasper Johns painting, part of his American flag series of 1960-1966, sold for $28 million this week. This was the highest price ever fetched at auction for the artist, who is dead, as is its former owner, Michael Crichton, author of Jurassic Park. The painting was expected to reap a mere $15 million, but clearly outperformed due to the vagaries of more traditional investments recently.

4. Cheese

I have conveniently provided a link to some very big opportunities in the cheese business in Eastern Ontario.

5. Horses

This one looks like it can't miss. An Azerbaijani firm marketing race horses raised on a farm in Germany.

6. Show Business

Somewhat riskier than race horses, but more satisfying in both success and failure. Investors in "The Fantasticks," which has been running somewhere in the world since Nero was a pup, have garnered a 24,000% return on their money -- like $80,000 on a $330 investment made in 1960. Of course, $300 in 1960 would be worth about $2,000 today. But it's still a winner.

On the other hand, my friend Bob invested several hundred thousand dollars in producing an off-Broadway show and lost all of it. This is better by far, however, than investing in some financial instrument or money market fund and then being told that whoops, your broker lost all of it but is keeping his bonus. People who lose money in show business still get to go to parties, drink with surly actors and wear ascots.