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Welcome back to another week with Renaissance. The newsletter equivalent of a congressman with insider tips…….we just can’t help sharing our knowledge. 🤢

Today at a Glance:

How To Be Successful And Get Where You Want: A Goldman Sachs Story

Eth Foundation Sells $2.7M In Eth - What Should You Do?

Should You Overpay Your Mortgage?

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

A million dollar Banksy got investors 32% returns?

Mm-hmm, sure. So, what’s the catch?

We know it may sound too good to be true. But it’s not only possible, it’s happening—and thousands of investors are smiling all the way to the bank, thanks to the fine-art investing platform Masterworks.

These results aren’t cherry-picking. This is the whole bushel. Masterworks has built a track record of 8 exits, the last 3 realizing 10.4%, 35%, and 13.9% net returns even while financial markets plummeted.

But art? Really? Okay, skeptics, here are the numbers. Contemporary art prices:

● Outpaced the S&P 500 by 131% over the last 26 years

● Have the lowest correlation to equities of any asset class

● Remained stable through the dot-com bubble and ’08 crisis

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The Renaissance Over-Under

Business, Money Markets & Financial News

How To Build Your Own Empire: How A Nobody Janitor Built Goldman Sachs 🧹

🧵Fade in…..1907 Brooklyn……you’re as poor as poor can be with an accent thicker than Lizzo. Where do you go to make some money? That’s right, Wall Street, where money never sleeps.

Though, for this 16 year old kid, he got more rejections from firms than most of us will experience in a lifetime! As 1 of 11 kids, 🌟 our hero Sydney Weinberg 🌟, had to get his life going for himself and make his own luck. His dad was a shitty liquor dealer and when you’re 1 out of 11 you don’t get a lot of attention!

(🐦this reminds of us that David Attenborough doc🐦 where the momma bird throws the small ones out of the nest so the best ones have better chances…I’m just saying make what connections you want between these things. Don’t kill your kids…….just have less/none for economic freedom 👀)

Failure……you’ve gotta pay your dues for a long time before success, what do we always tell you at Renaissance……let this be a lesson to you softies out there that are being too nice to yourselves! 👀

- Sydney got expelled from school later but started selling newspapers and shucking oysters. Then he was fired from these jobs for double dipping……

- Hustle - Sydney made great money hustling and selling his spot in bank lines during the panic stock crash!☔️💰 I loveeee this side hustle, it may be the best I’ve ever heard. 😂

- Though he quickly realised outdoor hustles in New York aren’t very fun in the Winter without a lot of food, so he tried every singleeee office at 43 Exchange Place, and landed a janitor’s assistant job FOR $3/week (‘no it’s assistant to the regional manager’ keeps playing in my head here’) Score! 😂

- Go over and above - Knowing he was at the bottom, Sydney worked hard and even brought an 8-foot flagpole to a partner's home! You wouldn’t even begin to know where to get a flagpole these days that’s how much hustle he had.👀

- Hard work gets rewarded - Sydney's work ethic impressed Paul Sachs, who promoted him to head of the mail room. 💌 Paul became his mentor teaching him the ropes of Investment Banking…..well the edges of it for someone with no reading or writing skills and who was a 7th grade dropout. 🤷‍♂️

- Skill up to be who you need to be - Sydney went back to school to learn math and writing and even won a prize for the fastest mimeograph operator around……weird flex but okay, Sydney. 🏆 He didn’t want to do that, but he did want to be successful.👀 Do what you have to do, become an expert until you can’t be ignored for any weaknesses!

- By 1911, Sydney was managing Goldman's foreign department. 🌍

- Do what you’re better suited for - But plot twist, he didn’t want to be a trader and lose money (what a loser right guys…HA…guys👀), he became an advisor and built up client relationships - impressing even the likes of Warren Buffett when they met at Goldman Sachs. Praise from the Oracle of Omaha.🤝 There’s traders in their mom’s basement that want nothing more in life than that haha.

- By 36 he became the youngest partner in Goldman’s history!! After the crash of 1929 he was mostly responsible for rebuilding the brand and was made CEO at 39, then he took Ford Motor Company public! The hits go on and on, all killer no filler! 💪

- It’s very FTX like, after the crash and they blow up the firm with their leveraged trading accounts, Sydney spent decades rebuilding Investment Banking and M&A, away from high risk trading and reshaping traditional banking as we know it.

⚡ Alpha: If doors don’t open up for you, climb through a window…. Don’t be passive about it - intensity is the strategy!

⚡ Try everything until something works for you, it eventually will if you keep taking shots! It takes 10 tries to succeed, get your reps in!

⚡ Learn all the skills you need to know, take courses, study, find a mentor, whatever it takes!

⚡ Lastly, realise even when you’re in the right place, it’s still not overnight success - you’ve got to work until you get the breaks after that, and this can takes years - just like selling your company, or becoming partner, or making the right trades.

⚡ Intensity is the strategy!

Shout out to the big man, inspirational and relentless. A hell of a lot for us all to compare ourselves to. 🙏

LITTLE BITS 😎

Allegations of running pump and dump schemes surface against former head of OpenSea Ventures

Billionaire Bridgewater Founder Ray Dalio’s Top 10 Holdings in 2023

I would be sick everywhere, on the spot. He’s done, he’s been toaded…..

NOSTALGIA OF THE DAY

Crypto Market & NFT News

Ethereum Foundation Suddenly Sells $2.7M In Eth. Coming Weeks After Vitalik Also Sells 1700Eth And Converts It To USDC Of All Things - Wut Do?

At Renaissance we bang on about history and patterns quite a lot but this is a widely known one, gather round children and I’ll tell you the myth……

⚡ Every time the Ethereum Foundation sells, they do so strategically, calling the top of the market over 70-75% of the time!👀 There is no asymmetrical return here, traders don’t take this gamble of staying Eth heavy. This should drag alts down for the next few weeks.

This is also backed by the Bitcoin dip after the whole world has become Isreali geopolitical experts……point is risk happens and assets go down and things get sold. 🙄

A local Eth top: The fact that it continues to sell its network validation rights for entries in circle's fiat USDC ledger tells me all I need to know about the strength of its uncensorable finance and their belief in short term demand…..it’ll be a downturn before a 2024 comeback as predicted.

Chain reaction:

👉 Lido controls 30% of all staked ETH.

👉Vitalik publishes an article on how staking pool changes could improve decentralization.

👉The Ethereum Foundation sells 1,700 ETH for $2.74M.

Equally, does it really need a foundation at this point in the structure doing this?

If you’re a high frequency trader then trade the small correction, but this will probably be a minor trails downwards. If you’re heavy Eth right now it might be worth converting to stables and then roll back in at a better price later.

Wealth Building, Personal Finance Hacks & FAT FIRE

Now that we’ve entered a new interest rate environment I’m sure a question that is on a lot of people’s mind is, does it now make sense to overpay my mortgage instead of investing? At Renaissance you know we always have the answer, and that answer is………it really depends. 🤷‍♂️

It depends on a lot of variables and your personal situation, but here’s a roadmap of the pros and cons between investing and overpaying your mortgage to help you make the right decision. 😉

Pros of Overpaying Your Mortgage Instead of Investing 🏠

⚡ Guaranteed Returns - The money that is used to overpay your mortgage achieves a guaranteed return, and that return is the mortgage interest rate you are paying. This return results from the amount of interest you now won’t have to pay on the mortgage principal you overpaid.

It then makes sense that the higher your mortgage interest, the higher the guaranteed return you will achieve from overpaying. Making this more attractive now than in the past.

⚡ Having less/no debt - Do you want to be a cog in this capitalist machine? Overpaying your mortgage and reducing your debt brings you one step closer to freedom.

⚡ Choose Your Risk - Choosing to invest your cash instead of overpaying your mortgage exposes you to a multitude of risks, often with larger downsides than overpaying. This will depend where you invest this cash, but will usually be market risk, credit risk (risk of default) etc..

Pros of Investing Instead of Overpaying Your Mortgage 💸

⚡ Liquidity - You keep your funds liquid. If you overpay your mortgage you are turning liquid funds into illiquid funds. The money is now tied up in the house which isn’t as easy or cheap to access.

⚡ Opportunity cost - This is a big one, and often hidden. Everything you do has opportunity cost, and choosing to invest money in your home comes at the cost of other possible opportunities. This ties in with the liquidity point above. Having the funds liquid in investments provides you greater opportunity to use it elsewhere if you see fit.

⚡ Potentially higher returns - Based on historical records, investments receive a higher return than mortgage rates. But this depends how you invest of course, the S&P500 historically has returned around 8%-10%, higher than mortgage rates even at this high level. But with some smarts and proper risk management you can outperform this………..which we here at Renaissance have shown time and time again.

⚡ Inflation - If you overpay your mortgage you lose out on the benefit of inflation. On a fixed rate mortgage, the monthly repayments remain constant. A $1,000 monthly payment 10 years ago is a hell of a lot more than a $1,000 monthly payment now. By overpaying your mortgage you lose the benefit of inflation eroding the value of the payments you make over time. You would be essentially paying less real value in cash as the mortgage goes on.

The above should make this decision clearer and hopefully point you in the right direction on which is best for you. Just make sure whichever you do, you do to the full. This is Grant Cardone or Warren Buffett.

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.