Young Americans are investing in sneakers and rare cars over stocks and bonds — is that a good long-term wealth-building strategy?

In all, 83% of wealthy young Americans ages 21 to 43 own or are interested in an art collection compared to 40% of the wealthy overall. They’re investing in “blue chip art,” said Drew Watson, Bank of America’s head of art services (yes, there is such a title), in a Bloomberg interview.

“The fastest-growing segment of the art market is still post-[World War II] and contemporary art” from 1945 to the present, Watson added. It’s enough to conjure images of the young and rich throwing wet Benjamins at a canvas a la Jackson Pollock and hoping they stick.

The question is, do strategies like this paint a picture of financial gain?

Wealth beliefs across the generations

One characteristic that Gen Zers, millennials and baby boomers share, almost to the percentage point, centers on viewing their financial security as good or excellent: 75% for ages 21-43 versus 78% for those 44 and up.

A slim majority of the 1,000-plus survey participants also saw interest rates as no cause for optimism. A combined total of 52% predicted that rates would either stay the same or increase, a merited assessment given the Fed’s move to call off at least two of its three anticipated cuts this year.

The sharp divergence comes, then, with how the generations have chosen to build wealth. There’s distrust among millennials and Gen Z with the tried-and-true route, as 72% believe it's “no longer possible to achieve above-average investment returns by investing solely in traditional stocks and bonds." Only 28% of those 44 and older agree.

Younger generations thus have a pronounced affection for crypto, the report stated, though that flies in the face of "a headline fraud case in the burgeoning crypto industry" that involved the fall of FTX.

Meanwhile, Binance, the world’s largest crypto exchange, pleaded guilty in November to breaking anti-money laundering laws, unlicensed money transmitting and sanctions violations in a U.S. federal court — agreeing to pay astounding fines that totaled $4.3 billion.

A (financial) appreciation of collectibles

With art and vintage items, the collection attraction is understandable given how it also provides a consumerist buzz.

After all, which is more gratifying, and downright fun? Owning 1,500 shares of General Motors, worth about $68,000? Or snagging a GM throwback — say, a 1960 Chevy Corvette two-door convertible just like the one gracing the cover of Bruce Springsteen’s memoir — that currently fetches an average of $69,200?

As for whether a collectible-based strategy can build wealth, there’s no way to know definitively, especially when value is so speculative (a characteristic of crypto as well).

Maybe that Corvette would've made for a turbocharged investment if you bought one new for $3,872, the price cited by JD Power. Still, with inflation, that's $39,900 today, calculations from the Minneapolis Fed show. That equals a return below 2x over 64 years and, to borrow from Boss parlance, not exactly born-to-run stuff.