Alternative Investing Report - March 20, 2025

*as of 3/19; Sources: S&P, BTC, FTSE, DJRE, GOLD

As expected, the Federal Reserve kept interest rates steady, but forecasted two future cuts in 2025. The Fed now projects inflation to grow at a 2.8% annual rate, an increase of 0.3%, due largely to tariffs. It also expects economic growth to slow considerably, with the GDP projected to grow at 1.7%, down 0.4% from its prior projection and from 2024’s 2.8% mark.

➨ TAKEAWAY: While the market anticipated the Fed’s decision, the prospect of two rate cuts this year was welcomed by traders, causing equities markets and crypto to rise in response. In addition to the two rate cuts in 2025, the Fed still expects two more in 2026 and one more in 2027. While the pace of cuts is not what people had hoped for at this time last year, it does still project an optimistic view of where markets could be headed.

For the first time in three decades, no copies of the legendary century-old T206 Honus Wagner card were sold in public in 2024. That is changing this year, as two will be auctioned this spring, one at Goldin, and one at Mile High. The Goldin copy, which opens for auction in late May, last sold in 2010 for $282,000 and now carries a $5 million estimate. The Mile High copy will come to the block in April, and is expected to sell for $2 million - $3 million, after being sold in 2023 for $1.97 million.

➨ TAKEAWAY: With an estimated 60 copies in existence, the hundred year old T206 Wagner is one of the true “grails” in baseball card collecting. Its value has risen dramatically in the past few decades, with the Mile High copy selling for $64,000 in 2003 and now expected to sell for 30-50x. These two sales will be a good test for the ultra-high end market, and as the story goes, no T206 Wagner has ever sold for less than it was purchased for.

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🏡 Multifamily rents growing: For the first time in nine months, multifamily rent growth outpaced single-family rents, rising 0.5% in February. Overall rents are up 3.5% year-over-year, with only three top 50 metros - - Austin, Denver, and San Antonio - seeing declines.

🪙 SEC drops lawsuit v. Ripple: In a highly-anticipated move, the SEC is no longer pursuing its enforcement action against Ripple, which saw its XRP token rise by 10% in response.

🚀 Mega rounds taking over: The top 20 VC deals of 2024 made up a record-high 31% of all VC capital deployed during the year, compared to only 6-8% from 2020-2022.

🏢 CRE Fear and Greed: The Q1 Burns + CRE Daily Fear and Greed Index stayed steady at 56, indicating a mildly positive market sentiment for the sector, with the primary concern being the current cost of capital.

🎨 Modern Indian art record: Just after a highly successful South Asian art sale at Sotheby’s, M. F. Husain’s “Untitled (Gram Yatra)” was sold at Christie’s for $13.8 million, smashing the estimate of $2.5 million - $3.5 million and becoming the most expensive modern Indian artwork ever publicly auctioned.

🪙 Polkadot ETF: Another day, another ETF filing - this time by the crypto trading firm 21Shares, for the Polkadot (DOT) token, one of the top-30 coins by market cap.

The chipmaking giant Nvidia is holding its annual GTC conference this week, dubbed the “Super Bowl of A.I.,” where it made a number of major announcements. The company partnered with General Motors to help build next-gen vehicles, acquired the synthetic data startup Gretel for nine figures, announced two new AI chips, and is joining Microsoft, BlackRock, and xAI in a $30 billion global AI infrastructure project. The spate of announcements has not moved the company’s stock price significantly, but the sheer amount of deals and attention the conference has generated can only be a bullish sign.