Alternative Investing Report - August 28, 2024

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_{*as of market close August 27}

Home prices rose half a percent to hit a new record high in June, according to the S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller Home Price Index. Prices are up 5.4% year-over-year, with New York (+9%) see the highest annual gain of the top 20 metros, and Portland (+0.8%) seeing the lowest. In a contrast, the FHFA House Price Index showed a tiny 0.1% decline in June, but reports prices up 5.7% year-over-year. Prices in all 50 states and 96 of the top 100 metro areas rose over the past year, with Syracuse, NY (+14.2%) leading the way and Austin, TX (-3.2%) bringing up the rear.

➨ TAKEAWAY: Both indicators show that the pace of home price growth is slowing, with the Case-Shiller year-over-year gain falling from 5.9% in May to 5.4% in June. In addition to the monthly decline in the FHFA index, Q2 was the third quarter in a row to show a slowdown in price growth. While mortgage rates have come down and demand has not yet returned yet, expect prices to stay somewhat stagnant going into the fall.

NFL owners voted 31-1 to approve 2024 Resolution JC-7, which will now allow private equity firms to buy up to a 10% passive ownership stake in franchises. Only four groups are approved to purchase stakes - Arctos Partners, Sixth Street Partners, Ares Management and a consortium of five other funds working together. They must buy a minimum 3% stake, can only own shares of six teams at once, and have to hold the investment for at least six years.

➨ TAKEAWAY: The NFL was the last major American sports league to allow private equity investment, and now that the floodgates are open, expect a flurry of activity. Franchise values have risen dramatically in the past two decades, and demand from investors is still high. This will allow individual investors greater access the asset class at potentially much lower buy-ins.

🎨 Artists to watch: Art in America named their 2024 “New Talent” artists, a list of 20 emerging artists from around the globe. The list originally ran from 1954-1966 and featured artists such as Helen Frankenthaler and Joan Mitchell. It was revived in 2021 and is a good cheat sheet for identifying up and coming artists.

👛 Le Bruun coin collection: After 100 years, what might be the world’s most valuable coin collection is going to be available in several upcoming auctions starting in September. The 20,000 piece collection could be worth as much as $72.5 million altogether.

🚀 San Francisco still tops for tech: Half of all startup employees and Big Tech engineers call the Bay Area home, and the recent AI boom has only helped widen the gap between it and second-place Seattle.

🪙 Crypto market dips: Bitcoin fell around 6% to trade below $59,000, and Ethereum fell 8% to below $2,500, causing $313 million in liquidations of leveraged crypto derivatives which caused prices to fall further.

🏡 Flood insurance deadline: Congress has until the end of September to reauthorize the National Floor Insurance Program, which insures more than 4.7 million people nationwide. Without an extension, people will not be able to secure mortgages in flood zones, so be on the lookout for Congress to take action.

📖 Fantastic Four #1: The highest-graded copy of the 1961 debut of the Fantastic Four is going to be auctioned at Heritage in September, as a new big-budget screen adaptation is slated to be released next July. Graded a 9.6 by CGC, a inferior 9.2 copy sold for $1.5 million in 2022, making this a strong bellwether for the high-value comics market.

The native token of The Open Network, TON is connected to Telegram, where creators and developers receive it as rewards and users use it to buy ads and its Telegram Premium membership. In the wake of Telegram founder Pavel Durov’s arrest, Toncoin has lost nearly 20% of its market value, but at $13.7 billion it still has the 10th highest market cap of any cryptocurrency.