Alternative Investing Report - July 30, 2025

*as of 7/29; Sources: S&P, BTC, FTSE, DJRE, CL50

Stock market indices and Bitcoin are hitting all-time highs, meme stocks are back, and the question on a lot of investors’ minds is whether the market is in a bubble. One big sign is that investors are using debt to buy stocks at a level last seen just before the 2008 financial crisis and the 2000 dot-com bust. Another indicator is that price-to-earnings ratios are at historical highs, leading Société Générale's Albert Edwards (who called the dot-com bubble) to warn investors that a market correction may be on the way.

➨ TAKEAWAY: While some indicators are pointing towards a market bubble, others are simply pointing towards a bull market that has emboldened investors to chase higher returns in riskier assets. The economy has been holding strong despite fears over tariffs and inflation, with strong jobs reports and solid growth, though that has slowed and inflation did rise in June. Overall, investors should always be cautious during a run-up that the market might get too frothy, and avoid using margin to buy risky assets, but there has been no sign of a market slowdown just yet.

Vincent co-founders Eric Cantor and Adam Katz take a look at the new trend of tokenizing shares of prominent pre-IPO companies and how that could affect investors in the short and long-term (7 mins).

U.S. home prices fell by a seasonally adjusted 0.3% in May according to the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller price index, and are up just 2.3% year-over-year, the lowest annual price growth in two years. Of the 20 largest metro areas, only Tampa, Cleveland, Minneapolis and Charlotte saw monthly price gains. Meanwhile, the FHFA House Price Index showed a similar 0.2% decline in May and a 2.8% gain year-over-year.

➨ TAKEAWAY: Both housing indices are showing what other measures have showed - that prices are declining while the market shifts towards buyers. This past spring was the worst for sellers since 2012, as inventory keeps increasing, mortgage rates remain high and potential buyers have shown themselves willing to wait for better conditions. Expect the rest of the year to continue to shift towards buyers, at least until there are meaningful interest rate cuts.

📊 Consumer confidence rises: Data from the Conference Board shows that consumer confidence grew by 2.1%, though consumers have still been hesitant to increase their discretionary spending.

🚀 Space tech IPO: Firefly Aerospace set the price range for its upcoming public offering at between $35-$39 per share, which would equate to a $5.6 billion market cap on the high end. The rocket maker had revenue growth of 572% in Q1 and was last valued at $2 billion last November.

🏢 CRE sales volume up: Retail property sales are up 37.4% year-over-year, with the industrial (+15%) and office (+11.5%) sectors also seeing substantial growth, as the asset class continues its recovery.

🤖 China’s new AI model: The startup Z.ai announced a new agentic AI model that is open source, free to download, and even cheaper to use than rival DeepSeek and could present a new competitor to the major American AI startups.

🚀 Ramp looking for funds: The fintech startup is reportedly seeking fresh funding at a $21 billion valuation, barely a month after its $200 million Series E landed at a $16 billion valuation.

🤖 AI deployed by Wall Street: Nealy 30% of institutional investors are now using Gen AI for research, investment operations, and even investment decision-making, and 20% of firms are close to joining this AI revolution.

For the second straight week, one of the biggest losers of any coin in the top-100 by market cap was Pump, the native token of the Solana memecoin generator Pump.fun. It is now 30% below its initial coin offering (ICO) price of $.004 and 60% below where it started trading publicly. The platform has been losing market share to LetsBonk, which uses the memecoin Bonk as its token, though Bonk has also fallen more than 20% this week. Pump.fun is reportedly launching a token reward system to try and win back market share, which did boost its price by 15% from its low. Still, Pump’s quick rise and fall are a cautionary tale about buying too much into memecoin hype and how volatile this sector of the crypto market can be.