Alternative Investing Report - November 27, 2024

*as of 11/26; Sources: S&P, BTC, FTSE, DJRE, CL50

While home prices are still reaching record highs, the pace of growth has slowed, with the S&P Corelogic Case-Shiller Index showing a 0.3% gain in September and 3.9% year-over-year. Of the top 20 metro areas, New York City saw the highest year-over-year gain at 7.5%, while Denver saw the lowest at 0.2%. Another measure of home prices, the FHFA House Price Index, recorded a 0.7% gain in September and 4.3% year-over-year. Hawaii saw the highest growth in prices, while D.C. and Louisiana were the only states to see a decline.

➨ TAKEAWAY: High asking prices and high mortgage rates have lessened buyer demand, causing a slowdown in price appreciation. However, the most desirable markets are still seeing solid gains, especially in areas with low inventory. The Case-Shiller and FHFA indices are the two most reliable measures of U.S. housing prices, but there is a lag in the reporting - with mortgage rates back up, expect further slowdowns in growth in future reports.

In case you missed it, Vincent co-founder Slava Rubin and Marcelo Ballvé, Pre-IPO analyst at Sacra, analyzed Stripe, the global payments platform last valued at $95 billion. They dug into the company’s growth, strengths, challenges, IPO prospects, and answered investor questions.

MicroStrategy, the one-time software company turned Bitcoin treasury led by Michael Saylor, added to its BTC holdings with a $5.4 billion buy last week. The company now owns over 386,000 BTC worth around $35 billion with a total purchase price of $21.9 billion. The company has been raising debt in order to fund these purchases, and Saylor has said that he never intends to sell and wants to accumulate 4% of all BTC in existence.

➨ TAKEAWAY: MicroStrategy’s purchases have prompted concerns about how much power the company and Saylor could have over the price of Bitcoin. In the short-term, these purchases push up the price, generate media attention, and lead to greater buying demand, but many are arguing that the strategy is not sustainable. Right now MicroStrategy’s market cap is around twice as much as the Bitcoin it owns and if it never sells, it is unclear how it plans to pay back its long-term debt.

🚀 CoreWeave IPO: The AI cloud platform is looking to raise over $3 billion at a $35 billion valuation from its public offering, which is projected to happen in Q2 2025. In May, the company was valued at $19 billion, and a year ago it was valued at $7 billion.

🏢 Office conversions: The number of office-to-residential conversions completed grew to 73 this year from 63 in 2023, with over 300 more planned or already underway. As vacancy rates rise, and the values of office buildings decline, expect more conversions as a way for cities to revitalize their downtown neighborhoods.

🥃 The Pope’s bourbon: Two bottles of Willett Distillery bourbon signed by Pope Francis are being auctioned off on December 7, with the proceeds going to charity.

💵 Pershing Square buys stake in Brookfield: Bill Ackman’s hedge fund bought a $2.6 billion stake in the alternative asset manager, a significant bet on its commercial real estate and infrastructure holdings.

🏡 New home sales fall: Sales of newly-built single family homes dropped by 17.3% in October and are down 9.4% year-over-year, as mortgage rates ticked back up and the country faced multiple hurricanes. Despite the decline in sales, the median price rose by 4.7% year-over-year.

🦸 Deadpool art: The original artwork from Deadpool’s 1991 comic debut sold for $960,000 at Heritage Auctions, showing that it’s not only debut comic books that are valuable, but the artwork as well.

While the crypto market has had a mostly positive week, memecoins have taken a beating, led by PNUT, a token that was launched less than a month ago to commemorate a viral pet squirrel that died. It quickly rose almost 50x from $0.05 to $2.47 in around ten days, and has since slowly fallen back, posting the highest loss last week among the top-100 coins by market cap. Other memecoins PopCat (-26.0%), Bonk (-17.9%) and Floki (-12.7%) were the next biggest decliners of the week.

Advertiser’s Disclosures

¹ Mode Mobile recently received their ticker reservation with Nasdaq ($MODE), indicating an intent to IPO in the next 24 months. An intent to IPO is no guarantee that an actual IPO will occur.

² The rankings are based on submitted applications and public company database research, with winners selected based on their fiscal-year revenue growth percentage over a three-year period.

³ A minimum investment of $1,950 is required to receive bonus shares. 100% bonus shares are offered on investments of $9,950+.

⁴ Please read the offering circular and related risks at invest.modemobile.com. This is a paid advertisement for Mode Mobile’s Regulation A+ Offering.

Past performance is no guarantee of future results. Start-up investments are speculative and involve a high degree of risk. Those investors who cannot afford to lose their entire investment should not invest in start-ups. Companies seeking startup investment tend to be in earlier stages of development and their business model, products and services may not yet be fully developed, operational or tested in the public marketplace. There is no guarantee that the stated valuation and other terms are accurate or in agreement with the market or industry valuations. Further, investors may receive illiquid and/or restricted stock that may be subject to holding period requirements and/or liquidity concerns.

DealMaker Securities LLC, a registered broker-dealer, and member of FINRA | SIPC, located at 105 Maxess Road, Suite 124, Melville, NY 11747, is the Intermediary for this offering and is not an affiliate of or connected with the Issuer. Please check our background on FINRA's BrokerCheck.