The Philosophical Investor's Blog

China and a New Cold War - Prioritizing National Security over Business and Investors

China Cold War

In some ways, I can understand investors looking through the threat of tariffs on multiple fronts by President Trump as just his standard negotiating tactic to strike a better deal. Despite very derogatory statements directed towards our strong allies and trading partners of Canada,

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T.R., Dana Delany, and the Power of a Platform

Dana Delany Teddy Roosevelt

Kudos to Heidi Garland who handles my social media. She is quite in her postings on my behalf on Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn. I never know what interesting tidbit she might be posting. Of all the platforms, Twitter is the most ephemeral as tweets are sent and they tend to have a short shelf life to them.

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Hurricanes & Markets: What Happens to Stocks and Bonds?

Hurricane and markets

Hurricane Michael created unfathomable devastation to Florida Panhandle beach communities. What was particularly insidious was how fast it formed and deprived people of precious time to evacuate. This picture is one representation of the fury of Mother Nature and the wrath she brought down.

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Treasury Note Yield: Could I Be Wrong? A Humbling Week

Treasury Note Yield

Talk about a humbling week. Last week I was making the case that 3.11% on the 10-year Treasury note yield and possibly as high as 3.16% were the key levels that I did not think would be breached. This chart shows how wrong I was.

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Single-Family Housing: No Bubble But There Is A "But"

housing

It has been our belief at CWS that housing in totality has been undersupplied. This does not mean that apartments may not be over-supplied in certain metro areas, particularly in the urban core. This is the case because these properties are often very dense and result in the delivery of a lot of units at one time that can often result in rent discounts to entice people to rent at these communities so developers can expedite getting out of their construction loans and/or be in a position to sell their properties.

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The Mortgage and Housing Crisis - Is History About to Repeat Itself?

Are We Opening Pandora’s Box to a New Housing Crisis?

With the regulator of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac announcing that the Government Sponsored Agencies will probably start purchasing loans with 3% down payments, it’s understandable that people would be concerned that we’re opening up Pandora’s Box again to a new housing crisis precipitated by terrible lending practices.

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Election Aftermath Fiscal Data What Will Be the Bottom Line?

Fiscal Policy

For the last few years, the Fed has been telegraphing that monetary policy cannot do all of the heavy lifting and that fiscal policy had to play a role as well. The market seemed to agree with the Fed and is also the reason that the market very rarely believed the Fed’s dot plot of the future path of interest rates.

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What Were Trump Voters Really Looking For?

Trump Voters

With the midterm elections kicking into high gear and political rhetoric heating up and true believers huddling in their echo chambers and cocoons, I thought it would be interesting to look at some research carried out with regard to the 2016 presidential election and some of the surprising findings.

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Life and Death Location Decisions - Innovative Technology Sectors

Decisions high tech

When we started to scale our apartment business in the mid to late 1990s our location decisions were based on investing in cities that would be highly appealing to knowledge-based workers. It was starting to become clear that economic growth would be driven by technological innovation deployed widely throughout U.S.

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Cultivating the Art Form of Loving

I recently completed a wonderful, classic book called The Art of Loving by Erich Fromm. It has great applicability to all relationships, not just your primary one with your spouse or significant other. I found there was also a lot to apply in terms of helping us at CWS to build upon our tremendous focus on communicating with and serving our investors.

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