Alternative Investing Report - January 15, 2026

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*as of 1/14 Sources: S&P, BTC, FTSE, DJRE, CL50

With mortgage rates slowly dropping, and potentially coming down even further, effects on the housing market have already started to appear. Existing home sales were up 5.1% in December, and are now positive on a year-over-year basis as well, rising 1.4%. Mortgage refinance applications jumped 40% and total mortgage applications rose 28% last week. The relatively stable CPI report from Tuesday should keep rates where they are for the time being.

➨ TAKEAWAY: Given that these numbers tend to be lagging indicators, expect housing market activity to continue to increase when next month’s reports come rolling in. The fact that even a small decrease in mortgage rates can spur such an increase is an indication of the pent-up demand from buyers. This bodes well for the rest of the year if the Fed cuts rates and mortgages continue to fall toward the low-to-mid 5s by the end of 2026.

In this mini-episode of Smart Humans, Vincent co-founders Slava Rubin and Adam Katz look back what 2025 brought in the art and collectibles market, and what to watch for in 2026.

📊 Wholesale inflation numbers: The latest Producer Price Index (PPI) report, a measure of inflation from the production side, showed a 0.2% monthly gain and 3.0% annual gain, slightly outpacing comparable Consumer Price Index (CPI) numbers. Core PPI, which strips out food, energy, and trade services costs, hit its highest annual mark in eight months. This shows that wholesalers and retailers are absorbing more of the expenses incurred by tariffs, and inflation as a whole is still far from the Fed’s 2% target.

🪙 Coinbase opposes crypto bill: As the proposed crypto market bill advances through the Senate, Coinbase CEO Brian Armstrong pulled his company’s support for the legislation, saying there were too many issues with the draft bill. As a result, the Senate Banking Committee delayed the bill, which may not have had the votes to pass even with Coinbase’s support.

🤖 Cerebras signs OpenAI deal: The AI chipmaking startup inked a $10 billion deal with OpenAI to provide computing power to the ChatGPT maker through 2028, a massive deal that comes in advance of a potential IPO.

🏡 Price growth by state: A BiggerPockets survey shows significant differences between expectations for 2026 in different markets, with Midwest and Northeast states having rosier projections than those in the South and West. The two markets with the lowest growth expectations are Indianapolis and Atlanta, both of which were stars of the post-pandemic 2021-2022 market.

💵 Ares credit fundraise: The alternative investment manager announced a $7.1 billion fundraise for its credit secondaries strategy, one of the largest fundraises ever for such a secondaries fund.

📖 Oscar Wilde auction: Next month, Bonham’s is auctioning off a trove of letters, photographs, manuscripts and other memorabilia relating to the legendary Irish author, playwright and poet.

As a follow-up to what we wrote about last week, after multiple countries banned xAI’s Grok chatbot for creating nonconsensual sexually explicit images, and multiple other jurisdictions opened investigations, Elon Musk capitulated and announced Grok will no longer be able to “undress” pictures of real people. Still the reputational damage has been done, and the company could still face stiff penalties for the images already created.

Elsewhere, in AI news, a new study has found that the current risks of AI usage in schools outweigh the benefits, and that the damage already caused is “daunting.” While there are some pros to using AI in schools, it has already become clear that the technology can impair children’s cognitive, social, and emotional development. The good news is that AI models can be changed and developed in response to the early results, so the negative effects are not set in stone.