🍔 Get ready for the McValue Menu

📊 Plus US PE deal value reached ​$838.5 billion in 2024​

How’s your college football bracket doing? Busted? Mine too. Every underdog won in the quarterfinals.

Discover Structured Products from Arta

Custom-built strategies + contractual guarantees

Arta Finance is a digital wealth platform offering access to sophisticated financial strategies.

Structured Products are custom-built strategies to unlock unique risk-reward.

Each one is custom-designed for today’s market environment. Arta runs competitive auctions among large investment banks to get the best possible terms for investors.

A key advantage of structured products? Returns are contracted based on market outcomes — if the assets perform as you expect them to, you're contractually guaranteed the outcomes described for that offering.

👉 Real-world example: Rally Dec 2024

In December, Arta created a structured note designed for investors bullish on both Microsoft and Google:

  • 1-Year Fixed Return: If both stocks are up, receive a 17.7% fixed return and principal back.

  • 3-Year Leverage: If extended, earn 200% upside exposure on the lower-performing stock.

  • Downside Protection: If stocks are down after 3 years, enjoy 20% principal protection against losses.

  • Minimum Investment: $25,000

  • Annual Fee: 0.50%

Next week, Arta will be releasing another structured note with equally exciting features, so join now to participate.

🎯 Who is this for?

  • Accredited investors looking for enhanced returns. (You do not need to be located in the US)

  • Those looking for principal protection buffers.

  • Individuals comfortable with a horizon of 1–3 years.

  • Those ready to diversify into sophisticated financial instruments with clarity and confidence.

Arta provides sophisticated, institutional-grade precision that is tough to replicate elsewhere

This issue is sponsored by Arta Finance Wealth Management LLC. Alts.co is not a client of Arta and has been provided cash compensation for the endorsement. The opinions expressed are based on the author’s knowledge of Arta’s services and are not indicative of future results. This issue is for informational purposes only and should not be considered investment advice or a recommendation to buy or sell any particular security.

📰 Market Headlines

Tech stocks powered markets higher while the Dow slipped.

Justin Trudeau announced he will resign as Prime Minister after nine years in power.

Fed banking regulator Michael Barr announced his departure in February ahead of Trump’s inauguration. He will stay on the board.

A judge denied Donald Trump's request to delay sentencing in his hush money case, set for Friday.

McDonald's launched its McValue national menu to recover from weak sales and an E. coli outbreak.

🎰 Alts this week

Did you miss this week’s Alts Cafe? Here’s all the best bits:

  • Austin’s housing market entered 2025 with ​30% higher inventory than pre-pandemic levels.

  • Nvidia completed its ​$700 million acquisition​ of Run:ai.

  • US PE deal value reached ​$838.5 billion in 2024​, with 8,473 deals completed.

  • Venture capital funding for blockchain startups reached $13.6 billion in 2024, and analysts project it will reach over $18 billion in 2025.

  • Female collectors outspent male collectors with a ​median expenditure of $410,000​ in early 2024.

  • A Bugatti Centodieci with 272 miles, valued at up to ​$15.6 million​, heads to RM Sotheby’s Paris auction.

  • Thieves stole 35,200 pints of Guinness​ from a UK depot, worsening Diageo’s holiday shortage.

  • The 2024 domestic box office dropped 3%​ to $8.75 billion, still below pre-pandemic levels of $11 billion.

🧠 Make yourself heard

How much of your portfolios is in alternative investments?

Login or Subscribe to participate in polls.

 📊 Ideas, trends, and analysis

  • Oil prices dipped from 12-week highs, with Brent touching $76.30 and WTI at $73.56.

  • Saudi Aramco raised prices for Asian buyers, marking the first increase in three months.

😱 Fear and Greed Index

📊 Winners and losers

Get $20 free shares at public.com using code ALTSCO.

Earnings, upgrades, and acquisitions

  • No Notable Earnings

Market movers

  • President Biden blocked US Steel's $14 billion sale to Nippon Steel.

  • Disney merged Hulu + Live TV with FuboTV, taking 70% control as Fubo shares soared 250%.

  • AMD launched AI-focused chips for laptops and desktops, leveraging its 28.7% desktop CPU market share.

  • Big Lots laid off 491 workers from its Montgomery distribution center.

  • The gaming industry cut 14,600 jobs in 2024, up 39%, with Microsoft, Unity, and Sony leading.

Recommended Newsletter

🌍 Global Perspectives

  1. 🇦🇹 Austria’s Freedom Party won 28.8% in September, securing a mandate to form a far-right government.

  2. 🇰🇵 North Korea tested a new intermediate-range hypersonic ballistic missile.

  3. 🇺🇸 The Biden administration transferred 11 Yemeni prisoners from Guantánamo to Oman, leaving 15 detainees.

  4. 🇳🇬 A suspected bomb explosion at a Nigerian school killed two people and injured two others.

📊 Crypto

  • MicroStrategy bought 1,070 BTC for $101 million and plans to raise $2 billion via preferred stock.

  • Calamos announced a Bitcoin ETF with 100% downside protection, debuting on January 22 on CBOE.

  • Gemini settled CFTC charges for $5 million over misleading 2017 statements.

AI-ighty Potential

Dubbed the "the rocket fuel of AI" by Wired, this groundbreaking innovation has sparked fervent excitement across Wall Street. And with projections soaring to a potential market cap of $80 trillion – equivalent to 41 Amazons – the magnitude of its impact cannot be overstated.

But here's the real deal: nestled within this tech revolution lies an opportunity for sharp investors to invest in a remarkable company poised to dominate its corner of this burgeoning market.

And thanks to The Motley Fool, the full narrative of this extraordinary tech trend has been compiled into an exclusive report, designed to arm you with the insights needed to make informed investment decisions.

🎤 What you said last time

“We need to end all foreign ownership of contracts for drilling in the US. We also need to stop selling as much of our oil to other nations for such low prices they can pay a premium for our oil and gas. We have the ability to have cheap gas in this country, let's f****** do it.”

🧠 Errata

📺 What to Watch Today

That’s all for today. Did I miss anything? Smash the reply button to let me know.

Cheers,

Wyatt

Reply

or to participate.