Alternative Investing Report - September 25, 2024

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_{*as of 9/24}

The “Holy Grails" auction, the first live event from the partnership between Sotheby’s and Fanatics Collect, took place last night in Manhattan. Notable attendees - including Tom Brady, Meek Mill, and Patriots owner Robert Kraft - saw 33 lots go under the hammer and sell for a combined $6.98 million. The highest-priced card was a 1955 Topps Roberto Clemente rookie that went for $840,000, but the splashiest sale was a 2018 Shohei Ohtani card, which set a record for any Ohtani card at $336,000, smashing the pre-sale estimate of $80,000 - $120,000.

➨ TAKEAWAY: This was a big night for sports cards, as the asset class got the red-carpet treatment usually reserved for high-end art auctions. Bidders from 20 countries participated, showing the growing global reach for the collectibles market. The Ohtani result was the biggest for any modern baseball card this year, and shows that a superstar can still create outlier results. All in all, it was a successful debut for this collaboration, at the first of many planned events.

Home prices continued to set record highs, but the pace of growth slowed again as the Case-Shiller Home Price Index recorded a 5% gain year-over-year in July, down from its 2024 peak of 6.5%. The FHFA House Price Index, also released yesterday, showed a 4.5% gain year-over-year in July, while prices have stayed flat over the last three months.

➨ TAKEAWAY: While the Fed rate cut is likely to lead to lower mortgage rates and increased demand in the market, it might take some time to show up in the data. These two indices represent the gold standard in measuring price in the housing market, but there is a two month lag, so don’t expect meaningful change until at least the end of the year. There is also a chance that buyers continue to wait, with further rate cuts forecast and the traditionally slower winter months approaching.

In this episode of Smart Humans, Slava Rubin talks with Propel(x)'s Swati Chaturvedi about investing into deeptech, life sciences, and biotech.

🪙 Caroline Ellison sentenced: The former CEO of Alameda Research received a two-year prison sentence and was ordered to forfeit $11 billion for her role in the collapse of the cryptocurrency exchange FTX. Ellison plead guilty and cooperated with authorities in their prosecution of FTX founder Sam Bankman-Fried, who is serving 25 years in prison for his part in the financial fraud.

💎 Rare diamond necklace: The piece, weighing 300 carats and featuring three rows of diamonds, has a possible connection to Marie Antoinette, and will be auctioned in November at Sotheby’s with an estimated price tag of $2.8 million.

🚀 Corporate VC deals are down: The venture arms of U.S.-based companies have participated in 1,385 deals so far this year, on pace to be similar to 2023, but down from 2022.

🏡 Selling below ask: In the first half of 2024, the average U.S. home sold for 1.9% below the asking price, and five cities in Florida made the list of the top ten cities where homes sell for the deepest discounts.

🤖 Sam Altman’s AI thoughts: A look at Sam Altman’s latest blog post, where the OpenAI founder opened up about his views on the current state of AI and its future, including the possibility of reaching “superintelligence” in the next “few thousand days.”

⌚ Most expensive quartz watch: A F.P. Journe Élégante Titalyt sold for a record $553,000 at Phillips in Geneva, as the one-of-a-kind item sparked a bidding war.

Bittensor is a peer-to-peer network that aims to reward users for the sharing and maintenance of machine learning data, creating a decentralized platform for advancing artificial intelligence. The protocol’s native token TAO was the highest riser in the crypto market last week, due largely to network upgrades and the launch of Ethereum-based smart contracts. It is up over 900% in the past twelve months, and has risen 250% since dropping to $164 in early August.