*** This version of Confluence is for testing only and contains a copy of content from June 29th 2026. No changes will be preserved. ***
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After 2000, however, commensurate with a giant bull market in the art world, art has consistently outperformed the stock market. Some articles have cited the overall market as growing at over 40% per year, However, results have been mixed; since the art market is extremely fragmented, with different geographic, style, socioeconomic, and quality segments subject to different drivers or risk and volatility, it is difficult to provide an overarching return with a definitive answer in terms of the strength of the investment market. It seems that in general, risk is greater than equity markets and return is generally lower, suggesting that its value lies more in diversification than as a primary investment. Below is a graph of the Mei and Moses art index, showing the variation in segment, in comparison to the S&P:
Mei and Moses concluded that art trends had a low correlation with equity markets, and generally outperformed stocks. There is clearly a lack of consensus in art market historical return valuation, no doubt due to the youth of the analysis and lack of agreed-upon metrics. What we can safely conclude, though, is that art can be highly useful in a diversified portfolio due to its non-correlation with other asset classes and the obvious increase in demand for its investment potential. Below is another analytical graph developed by Mei and Moses highlighting the increased returns of portfolios that include art as a hedge: 
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http://artmarketmonitor.com/2011/02/07/mei-moses-art-beat-sp-500-in-2010/
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