Question

7.5 A large-abstract painting of a skull by Jean-Michael Basquiat was purchased by Yusaku Maezawa for $110.5 million in 2016. It has become one of the world's most expensive piece of arts sold at auction. The skull painting was created in 1982 and bought at auction by a private buyer in 1984, when Basquiat was still relatively unknown. That time the buyer paid just US$19,000. If the original buyer of 1984 had invested his $19,000 in another investment vehicle (such as stock), how much annual return would he need to have earned in order to accumulate the same wealth as he did from the painting investment? Assume for simplicity that the investment period is 32 years.

Answer 1

If annual return be r%, then

$19,000 x (1 + r)³² = $110.5 million = $110,500,000

(1 + r)³² = 5,815.79

Taking 32nd root,

1 + r = 1.3113

r = 0.3113

r = 31.13%