I don’t typically find myself drawn to self-help books but after reading an article on Medium I found myself intrigued by one written in 1960 by a plastic surgeon named Maxwell Maltz. It is called Psycho-Cybernetics.
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The Philosophical Investor's Blog
Looking Back At My 32 Years With CWS And Planning For The Future
by 
Gary Carmell
Gary Carmell
July 20, 2019, was my 32nd anniversary at CWS. After college, I moved down to Orange County to be with Roneet to start our lives together. She had recently begun her career at Nordstrom that would be the start of a meteoric rise to upper management over her 10 years there.
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Trauma and Intelligent Investing
by Gary Carmell
Gary Carmell
Traumatic events can hold great sway over our lives. They can trigger reactions that are often times not healthy for us. I was at the Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles and saw someone speak who was born in Brussels in 1943. For the first two years of his life,
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Growth and Stability – How Could Apartments Ever Be Obsolete!
by Gary Carmell
Gary Carmell
Last week we held our annual investor meeting and we had a record attendance of nearly 600 people (including employees). I told the audience that if we can grow our attendance by 7% every year that by the time we have our 100th annual meeting (this was year 49) then we should have over 11,000 in attendance.
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CWS at 50: How We Have Survived and Prospered for 50 Years
by Gary Carmell
Gary Carmell
Last week we had our annual investor meeting for CWS. This was a huge milestone as we celebrated our 50th anniversary. The attendance was a record with more than 600 people taking time out of their busy lives to join us for dinner and presentations from the CWS principals.
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Newton's Third Law and Repo Madness
by Gary Carmell
Gary Carmell
It’s been said that markets go up like escalators and drop like elevators. There is also Newton’s Third Law which states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. This is where the Fed comes into play when markets drop like elevators.
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What To Avoid So That Your Happiness Continues
by Gary Carmell
Gary Carmell
Following up from last week’s blog post that discussed Bertrand Russell’s Conquest of Happiness, this week will focus on some of the actions we can take and the ways we can train ourselves to welcome more happiness into our lives.
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Bessembinder: A Fascinating But Skewed Study
by Gary Carmell
Gary Carmell
In reading @jesse_livermore’s latest and always brilliant missive/analysis, he referenced and linked to a study by Arizona State University professor Hendrik Bessembinder entitled “Do Stocks Outperform Treasury Bills?” It seems like a pretty ludicrous question since our capitalist system is supposed to reward risk-takers.
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Modeling A Recession
by Gary Carmell
Gary Carmell
Last week were engaged in our annual planning process. As part of this, we come up with key assumptions regarding the operating environment for the next three years or so. Interest rates, of course, are a huge variable in our business and dominated much of the discussion.
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Living Versus Existing
by Gary Carmell
Gary Carmell
Over the past year or so I have watched a number of video lectures from Rabbi Manis Friedman on YouTube. His clarity and insights have been very helpful for me in many different aspects of my life. Given that it was just Thanksgiving and it is a time to reflect on gratitude and giving I thought I would share one of his insights and how it has impacted my life and philanthropic endeavors.
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