Greetings! Happy National Croissant Day to those celebrating.

Let’s get into today’s top stories.

The WSJ just reported the highest price ever paid for modern art at auction.

While equities, gold, bitcoin hover near highs, the art market is showing signs of early recovery after one of the longest downturns since the 1990s.

Here’s where it gets interesting→

Each investing environment is unique, but after the dot com crash, contemporary and post-war art grew ~24% a year for a decade, and after 2008, it grew ~11% annually for 12 years.*

Overall, the segment has outpaced the S&P by 15 percent with near-zero correlation from 1995 to 2025.

Now, Masterworks lets you invest in shares of artworks featuring legends like Banksy, Basquiat, and Picasso. Since 2019, investors have deployed $1.25 billion across 500+ artworks.

Masterworks has sold 25 works with net annualized returns like 14.6%, 17.6%, and 17.8%.

Shares can sell quickly, but my subscribers skip the waitlist:

Skip waitlist

_{*Per Masterworks data. Investing involves risk. Past performance not indicative of future returns. Important Reg A disclosures: masterworks.com/cd}

🇨🇳 Allies recalibrate China ties as Trump pressures trade. Donald Trump’s tariff-first posture is pushing partners to hedge, not follow. Canada’s Prime Minister Mark Carney cut tariffs on China’s electric vehicles after Beijing offered lower rates on Canadian farm goods. On January 30th, 2026, Britain’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer reopened senior talks with Xi Jinping in Beijing. Germany’s Chancellor Friedrich Merz signaled a cooler tone on decoupling and a hotter tone on leverage. Finland’s Prime Minister Petteri Orpo and European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas framed the shift as de-risking, not retreat. Beijing reads the scramble as proof that Washington’s coalition is negotiable. Analysts say the near-term goal is market access, while the long-term goal is strategic room to breathe. The risk is mixed messaging that invites China to play capitals against each other. The bet is that coordinated pragmatism beats panic.

🇮🇷 Arab capitals push de-escalation as Trump presses Iran deal. President Trump is demanding a new nuclear agreement and hinting at force. Saudi Defense Minister Khalid bin Salman warned that miscalculation would torch the region. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth met with envoy Steve Witkoff in Washington. An Arab diplomat said the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Oman, and Qatar are urging restraint. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi met Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan in Istanbul on January 30th, 2026. Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan offered to facilitate as Iran’s President Masoud Pezeshkian signaled openness to talks. Activists say the crackdown has killed over 6,500 since protests began in December. Trump says Tehran assured him it would not execute about 800 protesters as he refocused on nuclear sites despite touting a “massive armada” nearby. Everyone wants a deal, but is also stocking the matchbox.

🛟 Atlantic search turns urgent after fishing boat goes down. The 72-foot fishing vessel Lily Jean went down Thursday about 25 miles off Cape Ann, Massachusetts. Authorities say seven people were aboard. Crews recovered one body and found an empty life raft in a widening debris field. The American Coast Guard said freezing sea spray and rough seas complicated the grid search. Gloucester’s mayor and State Senator Bruce Tarr urged residents to pray and to avoid rumor mills. The boat’s owner and captain, Gus Sanfilippo, was among those unaccounted for. Coast Guard commander Timothy Jones said aircraft, cutters, and crews kept rotating to beat fatigue. Water temperatures hovered near 28°F, turning minutes into an enemy. For America’s oldest fishing port, the ocean’s math is still merciless.

🎙️ Don Lemon case tests line between coverage and conspiracy. Federal prosecutors charged journalist Don Lemon after a January 18th, 2026 protest disrupted Cities Church in St. Paul. A grand jury indictment alleges conspiracy and interference with worshippers’ First Amendment rights. Investigators say the protest targeted an American Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) official and pastor, David Easterwood. Lemon was arrested overnight in Los Angeles, while three others were arrested in Minnesota, including journalist Georgia Fort. Lemon says he was documenting events, not organizing them, and plans to plead not guilty. Prosecutor Alexander Robbins sought a $100K bond, arguing Lemon joined a mob. A judge released him without cash bail and approved travel to France in June. Media law professor Jane Kirtley at the University of Minnesota called the case overreach. The administration says it is protecting worship, critics say it is punishing witness.

🎬 Catherine O’Hara’s comic genius exits stage at 71. The Canadian-born actor Catherine O’Hara died Friday at her home in Los Angeles after a brief illness, her representatives said. She broke out with The Second City in the 1970s. Alongside Eugene Levy, she became a pillar of the sketch series SCTV. She won an Emmy for writing on the show, then kept stealing scenes for decades. Movie audiences knew her from “Beetlejuice” and as the frantic mother in “Home Alone” with Macaulay Culkin. Television gave her a late-career coronation as Moira Rose in “Schitt’s Creek”. That role brought another Emmy plus a Golden Globe and 2 Screen Actors Guild awards. Colleagues called her whip-smart and deeply kind, a rare combo in a loud business like Hollywood. Her characters were absurd, but the craft behind them was precise.

📉 Wall Street slips as gold cools off and silver tumbles. The Standard & Poor's 500 (S&P 500) fell 0.4% to 6,939.03. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) dropped 179 points, also 0.4%, to 48,892.47. The Nasdaq composite sank 0.9% to 23,461.82. Gold sank 11.4% to $4,745.10 after topping $5,000 earlier in the week. Silver fell 31.4%, a metal tantrum that made equities look calm. The 10-year Treasury yield eased to 4.25% after briefly topping 4.50%. Traders parsed Trump’s latest push to reshape the Federal Reserve. His nominee to lead the central bank, Kevin Warsh, is seen as a hawk on inflation. The mood was not panic, just a reminder that safe can be a moving target.

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That’s all for today!

Much obliged and many thanks for reading and sharing today’s newsletter.

See you tomorrow!