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Welcome back to another week with Renaissance. The newsletter equivalent of Charlie Sheen, we’re winning, but with less coke and tiger blood……🐯

Today at a Glance:

The Entire History Of Wall Street

Bitcoin ETF Excitement And Our Moves

Very Simple Ways To Earn Extra Cash Each Month

But before we get stuck, this week we’re brought to you by Masterworks.

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The Renaissance Over-Under

Business, Money Markets & Financial News

The Entire History Of Wall Street 📚

1/ Let's take a journey through the hellscape that is Wall Street, shall we? 🎢 

- Think of this as mandatory homework, history repeats itself over and over again, socially, financially, even in ‘empires’ booms and busts.

- You should know this history and dive into parts of it to help you be a better investor, manage your business with more context, and be able to place yourself in today’s market, with yesterday’s context!

- If you’re relying only on current market moves and current info, you are screweddddd.

- It all started back in 1652 during the Anglo-Dutch wars, but that’s dull and I’m gonna fast forward to the good stuff! 😁

2/ By 1791, the Dutch and English had left, and Alexander Hamilton decided to establish financial order by creating the First Bank of the United States….originality wasn't their strong suit in naming, apparently! 🏛️💰

3/ In 1792, 24 stock brokers had a secret meeting under a buttonwood tree to sign the Buttonwood Agreement. 🌳 They basically made some kind of Hangover blood oath to trade securities only with each other, setting the foundation for what would become the New York Stock Exchange. Talk about a……shady start! 👀💼

4/ Fast forward to the Gilded Age, and J. Cook saw an opportunity to build a new kind of institution – an investment bank. Jay Cook & Company used telegraph messages to confirm client trades. A real tech pioneer and made the industry what it is today! 📠💸

5/ Across the Atlantic, the Rothschilds and the Warburgs were making their mark, inspiring the Lehman Brothers to set up shop in 1850. 🏦🌎(we all know what shit storm that sets off later👀)

6/ Marcus Goldman, with his son-in-law Samuel Sachs, built Goldman Sachs. They underwrote the IPOs of major companies like Sears, paving the way for the retail sector. 💳🛍️

7/ John Pierpont Morgan was a financial wizard when he came on the scene - he executed leveraged buyouts before they had a name, like a boss. 💼💰 He had more leverage than a fat kid on a see-saw!

8/ In 1907, a financial crisis triggered bank runs and led to the creation of the Federal Reserve in 1913. Crisis averted... but this has just been repeated with Silicon Valley Bank, and the debt ceiling has been rising further and further! 🏦🔥

9/ Solomon Brothers, Jacob Schiff, and other Jewish-led banks made their mark. Solomon Brothers became a powerhouse in the bond market. 💹💼

10/ The Roaring Twenties brought an economic boom, but the Great Depression followed in 1929. Cue FDR and the New Deal! 📉 Today this is a pretty stark reality, and I’d say we’re teetering on the edge of recession right now globally, this is a good period of the market to study!

11/ The Glass-Steagall Act reshaped the banking industry. JPMorgan chose commercial banking, leading to the birth of Morgan Stanley in 1938. Talk about sibling rivalry! 🤣💔 

12/ After World War II, the dawn of private equity took off. Steven Schwartzman launched Blackstone in 1985, leading the charge. 💼💼 And look how that’s played out, they basically own America single-handedly……a great masterclass playbook to study on how to buy your way to the top strategically!

13/ The '80s saw excess, junk bonds, and Michael Milken's innovative reign at Drexel Burnham Lambert. Greed, meet your match! 😈💸 Also add in the era of scams that we also often see repeated! Think about Bernie Madoff in the 80s and what’s happening right now with FTX and SBF, essentially identical situations…

14/ Black Monday in 1987 was a wake-up call for Wall Street. Junk bonds and lbos came under scrutiny, and Michael Milken went to prison. Oops! 📉🔒 Very relevant for the bonds and US treasury bills and what backs them now!

15/ The '90s brought hedge funds, new strategies, and the dot-com bubble. 🎉💻 And this is the real dawn of the era we live in and a big rise in complexity of what we can do financially!

16/ The 2008 financial crisis hit, leading to massive stimulus packages and the birth of Bitcoin in 2009. And look how that’s been playing out……from Warren Buffett calling it rat poison to 10 Bitcoin ETFs seeking approval and massive institutional buy-in! You’ll learn more about how to invest by simply tracking historical progress, and spotting repeating patterns and growth, than whatever dogshit media headlines are pushing… they’re talking out of their ass.

‘Mark Baum really did that’ - god I need to watch the Big Short again

17/ The rise of FAANG stocks and retail investors, thanks to platforms like Robinhood and Reddit, changed the game completely. 🚀🦍 But you still see how the capital access and pipelines are literally rigged against you as retail investors, just look at how GME played out!

18/ Now, as we enter a new decade, central bankers are grappling with the consequences of printing money. Jerome Powell is tightening the reins and fucking us with inflation and high rates!

19/ So, there you have it, the wild and wacky history of Wall Street. It's a bumpy ride, but the financial industry keeps on evolving.💼💪 The fascinating thing once you’ve studied your history is how you think about the macro movement of the market afterwards! The system has repeated itself for 400 years without interruption, and the only true interesting point is Web3 introducing a completely new parallel system and how these 2 worlds will collide……

LITTLE BITS 😎

Peter Thiel was an FBI informant!!! Whattttt, the founder of Palantir, a snitch, who would have guessed🤷‍♂️ https://www.businessinsider.com/peter-thiel-fbi-informant-charles-johnson-johnathan-buma-chs-genius-2023-10

JPMorgan makes its predictions on where it’s deploying assets. Could be interesting but take these with a pinch of salt…. …https://www.businessinsider.com/how-to-invest-stocks-bonds-real-estate-outlook-strategy-jpmorgan-2023-10

NOSTALGIA OF THE DAY

Crypto Market & NFT News

You basically got an ETF dry run and look what happened. Take note for when this is the real deal, we’re not kidding.👀

In other news, we are in a golden age of DEXs and DeFi! But it won’t last forever. You need to instantly take action while the going is good!

Speaking of which……

⚡At Renaissance we’ve been loading up on $REKT, purely on the narrative of Arthur Hayes being behind it.⚡ Notoriety gets the benefit of the doubt pump. We think it’ll eventually skate up to just under the $100M market cap, at least it should - it would be a bad execution from here if it didn’t!

Wealth Building, Personal Finance Hacks & FAT FIRE

We know a lot of you are younger readers, guys in their 20s hustling at the start of their career, making moves and looking at what they can do to get ahead. You’re at the right place here at Renaissance. We’ve been just like you and know the struggle.

And money can be tight during the start. You have expenses - rent, bills, food, car - and your salary hasn't risen too high yet. Finding the cash to save and invest can be tough, and while you’re spinning on the hamster wheel not able to save/invest each month it can be frustrating. 🐹

So here’s some small tips that can be used each month to earn a bit of extra cash. Simple things where you can earn money just by living.

High interest current accounts 💵- The interest may not be as high as you can get in a dedicated savings account (which you should definitely be using for any cash savings you have), but it can still be a few percent. This is interest earned on your cash just for having it in your account. Easy money - take it.

Credit cards 💳- Utilising credit cards effectively can be a great means of optimising your finances. Put all your daily expenditure on the card and have a direct debit transfer to clear the balance at the end of the month when it’s due. Very important to clear this in full each month to prevent paying ridiculous interest, so only spend money that you actually have! Meanwhile the money will be sitting in your account earning interest if you followed the first tip above.

These cards also come with additional perks, earning points and rewards which can be cashed in for discounts.

Cashback cards 💳- Many cards give you cashback just for using them. Some of them fall into the credit card territory above, and some don’t. These are incredibly helpful and it’s literally free money! For example Fidelity Investments has a card that gives 2% cash back on all purchases. https://www.fidelity.com/spend-save/visa-signature-card

Moneyback apps 📱- These are similar to cashback cards but operate as apps. Offering cash back for certain services and at certain retailers, with the money being sent straight to your account. All you need to do is upload the receipt or enter some of the digits of your card to verify the transaction. One we like is Upside 👇

Donating blood 👀- Is this what it takes to get ahead, literally a blood sacrifice. But this can be an incredibly easy way to earn some cash! It doesn’t take too long and the average clinic pays about $50-$75. Do this a few times a month and it’s some decent extra $ to invest. Although this is one for the US guys, you don’t get paid to donate blood in the UK. 😢

This may not all seem like much, but when starting out every extra $50 or $100 invested can make a big difference. When you’re young this is when you have the greatest opportunity to build wealth.

$100 now amounts to over $1,600 in 40 years, assuming just a 7% return!

Or you can pay attention to our narrative plays and picks, learn, and do way better than this!

Meme of the Day

That’s a wrap for this week! Meet us on Twitter to talk all about it. Where we’ll send you jokes, tips, and all important news from the world of money, business and crypto and more! (@RenaissanceDly)

“Net Return" refers to the annualized internal rate of return net of all fees and costs, calculated from the offering closing date to the date the sale is consummated. IRR may not be indicative of Masterworks paintings not yet sold and past performance is not indicative of future results. See important Regulation A disclosures at masterworks.com/cd.