Word: instrumental
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Facing volatile equity markets, investors often look to gold and silver. But an updated study of classical-instrument valuations by Brandeis economist Kathryn Graddy shows that violins may be among the most stable of investments. Graddy's data indicate that between 1850 and April of this year, the value of professional-quality instruments rose in real terms (i.e., after inflation) about 3% annually. High-end violins have appreciated at much higher rates - particularly rare instruments made by Italian masters like Stradivari, Amati and Guarneri...
...turbulent times, instrument valuations have very little correlation with indexes like the S&P 500. That's valuable for anyone looking to hedge against the rampant swings of the stock market. In a recent study in the international journal Pensions, R.A.J. Campbell suggests that pension funds consider adding top instruments to their portfolios to diversify their risk. "Violins are much less volatile than art," says Graddy, who co-authored a paper called "Fiddling with Value: Violins as an Investment?" While the Mei-Moses Fine Art Index was down 35% in the first quarter of 2009, prices for top instruments showed...
...instruments that sell for more than $1 million are a small percentage of the overall market," says Philip Margolis, a string-instrument analyst based in Rapperswil, Switzerland. "These are the ones you hear about, but there are maybe 500 in the world. But musicians use tens of thousands of instruments in the $30,000 to $500,000 range," says Margolis, who founded Cozio.com, which has information on more than 11,000 instruments worldwide. A small fraction of top instruments surface on the market in a given year, adding a rarity premium to their values. (Read "Accidental Genius: Why a Stradivarius...
...account of the funeral, Adams Oloo, a politics lecturer at the University of Nairobi, nods and says: "There is no healing." That's often the case in Africa. Kenyans want peace. But their leaders thrive instead on enduring enmities and division. "Political leaders use ethnicity as an instrument to achieve power and their goals," says Oloo. Which means, adds a Western diplomat in the city, "There is no good guy in this scenario...
...standards from the outside world come from Harvard’s own inflation of its image, and this creates a fear of mistakes or inadequacy. Even within Harvard, many are overly modest because they are fearful of their peers’ talents. When someone says that he plays an instrument but that he is not very good, it means he has only appeared at Carnegie Hall once. This heightened modesty is good in the sense that it minimizes arrogance, but it is damaging in so far as it undermines individuals’ self-confidence and keeps them from even trying...