Morning pals! To those who invested in tech this year, congrats! You’re at all-time-highs. To those who invested in crypto this week, hope you’re alright.

It’s been a bit chaotic, with elections around the world, a hurricane in Texas, and someone chugging a galleon of lemonade in 23 seconds.

Shall we?

Markets

Source: CoinGecko.com As of 3:11pm July 7th

World news

Top news stories of the past week

1) Markets at all-time-highs: U.S. stock markets had a big week, with the S&P500 up 1.3% and 17.4% year-to-date to all-time-highs. The U.S. Federal Reserve is expected (maybe optimistically) to cut rates in September and again in December. Who knows!

2) Hurricane hits Texas: Hurricane Beryl (they’re really running out of names) is on track to hit Texas today. Hurricanes make landfall in Texas about once every six years.

3) Unemployment ticks up: The U.S. added 206,000 jobs in June, the May jobs print was revised down from 272,000 to 218,000, and unemployment ticked up to 4.1%. Overall this indicates that the U.S. job market is losing steam, which may encourage the Federal Reserve to cut rates soon.

Top WEIRD stories of the past week

1) Maybe the most American event of the year, this past weekend was the annual Nathan’s Famous Fourth of July hot dog eating contest. Patrick Bertoletti won the men’s division with 58 and Miki Sudo won the women’s group with 51. This is peak athleticism.

2) Not weird, but awesome: Lewis Hamilton won the Formula One British Grand Prix. This was his first victory in 945 days and his ninth victory at this one track - an F1 record!

3) In Tokyo's election, an eclectic mix of candidates sought to persuade voters with nearly-nude pictures, pets, an AI character, and a man practicing his golf swing. It’s a competitive field, with 14,000 candidates - gotta stand out somehow!

Chart

You like charts? Graphs? Ya you do

What’s dominated in the stock markets this past year? Growth over value.

Investment idea

What are we investing in?

Fine art

Is there anything richer than saying you invest in art? Maybe saying that you invest in a portfolio of racehorses, but let’s stick with art today.

First, why would you want to invest in art? Two reasons: high potential returns and low correlation.

Art has performed well relative to other asset classes:

And it’s done this while having relatively low correlation with other asset classes:

These two features in combination mean that adding art to your portfolio can have a real positive impact.

So, how do you start investing in art?

1) Buy physical art pieces - this is the most direct exposure to traditional art, but the most difficult and fairly risky as it’s a concentrated bet. It can also be more work to buy and store.

2) Buy digital art pieces - digital art (NFTs) is an entirely new asset class that’s come onto the scene in the last few years. These digital art pieces range widely in price and can also be very risky, but they’re easy to buy and store.

3) Buy fractions of art pieces - with platforms like Masterworks you can buy fractions of art from famous artists like Banksy, Andy Warhol, and Jean-Michel Basquiat - big names! This means you don’t have to spend as much or worry about storing the pieces.

History

On this day…

…in 1947, debris from a crashed U.S. military surveillance balloon near Roswell, New Mexico was initially reported as a “flying disk,” sparking widespread UFO speculation. Are aliens living among us? That’s a light question for Monday morning. Discuss with your colleagues!

Music

Banger of the week

Most important thing

Meme? Nah. Art.