I’m a rule follower. It’s not a bad thing. I’m also big on routine. Coloring inside the lines makes for a calmer life for me, but it can also be limiting. Brilliant minds are usually the opposite. It is only by breaking the “norm” rules do they find the “new.” Working outside the edges of “comfortable” is where everything grows.
Here’s what I’m reading this week:
The Decline of Different (article): Is everyone and everything moving toward sameness? Innovation starves when people don’t deviate from the norm.
The Untold Story of Charlie Munger’s Final Years (article): The “Robin” To investing’s Batman was an interesting chap.
The Thinking Game (video): If you want a glimpse into the future of what AI will do, this is a great documentary on YouTube. They followed Google AI around for several years. The future is going to be wild.
Wall Street Isn’t Warning You, But This Chart Might
Vanguard just projected public markets may return only 5% annually over the next decade. In a 2024 report, Goldman Sachs forecasted the S&P 500 may return just 3% annually for the same time frame—stats that put current valuations in the 7th percentile of history.
Translation? The gains we’ve seen over the past few years might not continue for quite a while.
Meanwhile, another asset class—almost entirely uncorrelated to the S&P 500 historically—has overall outpaced it for decades (1995-2024), according to Masterworks data.
Masterworks lets everyday investors invest in shares of multimillion-dollar artworks by legends like Banksy, Basquiat, and Picasso.
And they’re not just buying. They’re exiting—with net annualized returns like 17.6%, 17.8%, and 21.5% among their 23 sales.*
Wall Street won’t talk about this. But the wealthy already are. Shares in new offerings can sell quickly but…
*Past performance is not indicative of future returns. Important Reg A disclosures: masterworks.com/cd.
All the best,
Timothy
