Hello and welcome to Alts Cafe
This is your weekly quick-fire analysis on all thing Alts investing. We delayed sending til today due to the holiday in the US yesterday.
TLDR:
- The poor are getting poorer
- Commercial real estate continues to implode
- AI companies are smashing it
Like these posts? Please give us a shout on your socials, we’d appreciate it.
Wyatt
Table of Contents
Macro View
Everyone was playing wait and see last week.
Bullish News
- It looks like the White House and Congress have made a deal to lift the debt ceiling.
- US economic activity rose in May to the highest pace in 13 months.
Bearish News
- A record share of Americans — 35% — say they’re worse off financially than they were a year earlier.
- Auto loan delinquencies are approaching 2008 levels in the US.
- The American Fed hasn’t got a clue what it’s going to do about rate hikes.
- For the first time ever, the number of Americans who say they could cover a $400 emergency has fallen year over year.
- Poorer American consumers have slowed down purchases of expensive gadgets and minor splurges, but the 1% continue to spend spend spend.
- Germany is in a recession. Scheisse.
What are we doing?
ALTS 1 fund news:
We’re looking into an investment in the Deathcare space 🪦 👀
Real Estate
Bullish News
- US housing starts increased in April.
- Nationwide, one and two bedroom rents were flat month over month in the US for April.
- Single American women are 70% more likely to purchase a home than single men.
- Bucking the trend, Nashville, Charlotte, Miami, and Dallas saw office space vacancies decrease in Q1.
- Betting against remote work, a rich guy is
lighting $1 billion on firespending $1 billion to redevelop San Francisco’s Transamerica Pyramid.
Bearish News
- There are more realtors in the US than there are single-family homes available for sale.
- Brookfield, which defaulted on a $787 million office building in February, missed payments of $275 million on another property in Los Angeles.
- Nationwide, office space vacancies climbed 50bps to 17.8% in Q1.
- Over 80% of maturing office loans will struggle to refinance.
- Remote work could wipe out 44% of office values in NYC.
- Mortgage applications last week were down 30% YoY.
- China’s got a $23 trillion real estate debt mess.
- Florida has banned Chinese citizens from buying land. The ACLU is suing.
How to invest in real estate right now:
I’m still out of the real estate market [no change].
Crypto & NFTs
Here’s what you need to know:
Pretty good week; markets climbed as news of a debt ceiling deal looked imminent.
Not much change here.
NFTs pumped this week.
Bullish News
- Michael Lewis, author of “Moneyball” and “The Big Short,” has nearly finished his book about SBF.
- The ECB says a digital euro may only be a few years away.
- Bitcoin payments app Strike is expanding from three countries to 65.
- Sort-of American Presidential candidate RFJ Jr will accept donations in Bitcoin.
- Do Kwon’s bail was revoked.
Bearish News
- Binance can’t stop doing shady stuff.
- According to America’s Commodity Futures Trading Commission, there is no way to police all cryptocurrency fraud because there is so much.
- Crypto was used to buy $38 million worth of fentanyl.
How to invest in Crypto & NFTs right now:
It’s accumulation season.
Startups
Bullish News
- OpenAI closed a $175m startup fund to invest in companies using its LLM model.
- There are now 13 generative AI unicorns.
- India’s Ola Electric, a scooter company, is aiming to IPO by the end of 2023.
- China is building a Starlink competitor.
- The Tesla Model Y was the world’s best-selling car in Q1.
Bearish News
- VCs are facing pressure to divest from China.
- Emerging managers are struggling to raise funds.
- Crypto venture capital firm Paradigm, one of the most established and active players in the space, has pivoted to AI. Cue the AI collapse.
- The EU fined Meta $1.3 billion for breaking a law that’s impossible to comply with.
- Peloton is trying to rebrand / pivot.
How to invest in startups right now:
Gonna keep saying it — stay far away from AI startups that are just ChatGPT skins.
That’s all for this week. I hope you enjoyed your coffee and this edition of Alts Cafe.
Cheers,
Wyatt
Disclosures
- This issue of Alts Cafe was brought to you by our very clever friends at sliceNote and Otherweb.
- We are holding BTC and ETC in our ALTS 1 Fund. Apart from those, we don’t own any other assets or vested interests in the companies mentioned in this email.
- We are investigating an opportunity in the Deathcare space, and will report as soon as there’s something to report.
