Alternative Investing Report - May 21, 2026

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*as of 5/20; Sources: S&P, BTC, FTSE, DJRE, GOLD

After a good start last week, New York’s spring art week ended up generating nearly $2 billion in auction sales and closed with strong performances across all three major auction houses. Christie’s led the way with its dual sales on Monday night that topped $1.1 billion, just above the pre-sale high estimate. The night was highlighted by a record-shattering $181.2 million Jackson Pollock painting that became the 4th-most expensive artwork ever sold at auction. A Constantin Brâncuși sculpture sold for $107.6 million, the second-highest total ever for a sculpture at auction. On Tuesday night, Sotheby’s Modern Art auction brought in $304 million, a 63% increase over the same sale last year. The same night, Phillips’ Modern and Contemporary art sale saw all 40 lots sell for a total of $115.2 million, more than double its total from last year and well above the high estimate of $84.2 million.

➨ TAKEAWAY: The week of auctions was a clear success, despite earlier fears that the geopolitical and economic environment could cause disappointing results. It is clear that high-end collectors and investors are still committing significant capital to the art market. While the headline-making sales aren’t necessarily representative, it is clear that the market has recovered from its post-pandemic dip.

In the newest episode of Smart Humans, Vincent co-founder Slava Rubin and Sacra co-founder Jan-Erik Asplund take an in-depth look at new public funds that offer investors access to private shares in companies on the path to an IPO like SpaceX, OpenAI, and Anthropic. They break down how these vehicles are structured and what investors are actually getting exposure to beneath the surface.

🏡 Hottest rental markets: Providence, RI, tops the list of the hottest rental markets in the U.S., based on annual rent growth, vacancy rate, and how frequently landlords make concessions to attract renters. New York and San Francisco are next on the list, with the lack of new housing supply leading to more competition among renters.

🚀 Mercury fundraise: The digital banking startup raised $200 million at a valuation of $5.2 billion, up nearly 50% from its valuation last March. Fintech funding has been on the rebound since 2024, and is off to a strong start in 2026.

💵 Bond yields are rising: With inflation getting worse and the chances of a Fed Cut this year disappearing, U.S. Treasury yields have spiked in the past month — leading to higher mortgage rates and increasing borrowing costs across the board.

🏢 Modular data center startup: Armada, a company that builds modular AI data centers, raised a $230 million round at a $2 billion valuation, as AI infrastructure continues to attract investor capital. Armada’s customer bookings have grown 20x year-over-year and it signed a partnership to help build a massive data center in Arizona.

🪙 Prometheum launches: The trading platform that spent years navigating the regulatory landscape under former SEC Chair Gary Gensler has finally executed its first crypto trade. The landscape shifted around the company, though, and all the time spent on compliance has put it behind bigger, more established rivals and ETFs.

📖 Record Tolkien sales: The biggest sales in a recent $3.3 million rare book auction at Heritage were a first edition, first impression copy of “The Hobbit” that sold for a record-setting $450,000, and a full set of three first edition, first impression copies of “The Lord of the Rings” trilogy that sold for a record $325,000.

Increasingly, gray whales have been traveling into San Francisco Bay during their migration from the Arctic to waters outside Mexico, often with tragic consequences. Last year, 21 gray whales were found dead in the area, with nearly half killed by ship strikes in the busy shipping corridor. Now, an AI-powered monitoring system is being used to detect whales coming into the bay and warn ships of their presence. The system uses the temperature difference between water coming from whales’ blowholes and the surrounding water to find whales before they enter the Bay. With the population of gray shales declining significantly in the past five years, thanks to climate change disrupting their Arctic food supply, any help they can get is vital. With AI proving to be generally unpopular among the U.S. population, perhaps saving the whales will give the industry a reputational boost.