33 days after my heart surgery I resumed playing tennis. Of course, it was not at the same level or intensity as it was prior to my surgery but it was great to get back on the court nonetheless.
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The Philosophical Investor's Blog
Basketball Masters and The Infinite Game
by 
Gary Carmell
Gary Carmell
I’ve written many times over the years regarding my interest in the subject of mastery. I have great admiration for people who go deep into their craft and come to know it so well that they continuously find an edge to enable them to be successful over the long term and be able to persevere through the inevitable adversities that life throws our way.
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Healthy Ecosystems and the Philosophical Investor
by Gary Carmell
Gary Carmell
The ecosystem and nature are fascinating to me. What I find so interesting is how systematic and interconnected it is and how species and ecosystems evolve. I naturally (pun intended) wanted to see if there were any lessons that could be applied to investment firms like CWS (and ourselves individually) from the characteristics of healthy ecosystems.
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Lumbering in Pain
by Gary Carmell
Gary Carmell
Although CWS is largely an owner/operator of apartment communities, we have been developing new communities for over 25 years. Approximately 15% of our portfolio consists of properties we have developed. Given the large amount of capital looking to own apartments and the compression in cap rates,
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A Muddled Approach to Guesstimating Libor's Next Peak
by Gary Carmell
Gary Carmell
Although I’m in the camp that the Fed will stick to its word and not raise short-term interest rates until after 2023 at the earliest, the market is betting differently. Rather than focusing on when the Fed will start raising rates, let’s assume that they will.
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Sayonara Bonds
by Gary Carmell
Gary Carmell
The first quarter was incredibly ugly for bond investors, particularly those with exposure to longer-maturity ones. Bond investors were not happy as Treasuries generated the worst quarterly return since 1980.
So who were the big sellers of Treasuries?
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Stuck Ships and Chips
by Gary Carmell
Gary Carmell
[UPDATE] 3:00 PM Egypt – 6 AM PST the Ever Given was refloated and is on the move again. Credit is given to the full moon bringing the spring higher tides, 14 tug boats, and the 27,000 meters of sand removed. The following was written prior to this news.
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Some Like it Hot (Including Homeowners)
by Gary Carmell
Gary Carmell
I remember reading about how Peter Drucker knew to leave Germany after Hitler came to power. He said it was simple. He read Mein Kampf and took Hitler at his word. Since he was Jewish he had to assume he was a target and he determined that the risk of emigrating was far less than the risk of staying.
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Stimulus: Should I Save or Should I Go (Spend)
by Gary Carmell
Gary Carmell
Economic growth is projected to increase quite substantially now that the $1.9 trillion stimulus has been passed. The following chart shows that economists are forecasting the strongest growth since the Reagan years.
Not surprisingly, a lot of this projected growth is predicated on the spending of built-up savings from multiple stimulus packages that have passed and been disbursed.
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Lessons from Columbo
by Gary Carmell
Gary Carmell
Not surprisingly, one of the ways of occupying my time while recovering from my heart surgery has been to dive into all of the different content options on the streaming services. Despite the myriad of choices, I have found very little to watch and that is really more particular to me in that I have a hard time starting a series and being committed to finishing it.
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