As you say, it is virtually impossible to come up with a “fair value” for art (“Painting by Numbers,” April 26, 2007). Fair enough, especially for contemporary art, which the market knows least well. It is also true that there are many middlemen in the art market, as you claim. Once again, it stands to reason that the crowd of middlemen is at its thickest in contemporary art, which is the murkiest. But will the new hedge fund you advertise, the Art Trading Fund, really exploit the inefficiencies of the system? It has assembled a stable of living artists with proven records, where each artist produces a steady stream of work, for which there is a network of buyers, and it hopes to hedge the fund using share derivatives of companies linked to rising art prices, such as Sotheby’s and Christie’s. But what are “proven records” in contemporary art? The best the Art Trading Fund can do is play with its precious stable on the margin. It can make and unmake its artists, that is. If it is large enough, the new hedge fund can manipulate the art market as it sees fit, and in that sense it can be said to be efficient. But in no other. For the best among the middlemen do precisely that: they make and unmake artists. Remember, a “fair value” for art is virtually unfathomable.