Gary Carmell
The Fed’s balance sheet is comprised of approximately $2.5 trillion in Treasury securities and $1.8 trillion in mortgage backed securities. The following graph shows how its balance sheet has grown since 2009 through 2014 when it stopped its bond-buying program.
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Gary Carmell
With this being a Labor Day week I thought I would take it a little easier and outsource this week’s investment wisdom to a Wall Street legend, Byron Wien. He put together some of the most important lessons of his first 80 years and they represent some of the best advice I have ever read.
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Gary Carmell
It is notoriously difficult to separate the signal from the noise when it comes to investing. What information is truly meaningful enough to take action that can lead to making money or avoiding loss versus useless information that leads to decisions which bluff us in or out and lead to lost opportunity or losing money?
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Gary Carmell
Now that there is a new tax regime in place I thought I would discuss it one more time with some additional thoughts. It does appear that while most parts of the country will not be significantly impacted by the mortgage interest deduction being reduced to $750,000 for future home purchases,
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Gary Carmell
“Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are pliable.”
~ Mark Twain
Balanced Investing – Home Ownership and My Fascination with Logarithms
It was a pretty busy week so this one will be rather quick. For some reason, I was intrigued by logarithms growing up.
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Gary Carmell
One of the principal reasons I have been in the camp of interest rates remaining low for many years to come relates to demographics. I have always thought that Japan is the canary in the coal mine in terms of being on the leading edge of a rapidly aging society and how this filters through to lower interest rates.
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Gary CarmellIs Mortgage Credit Too Tight – Ask Ben Bernanke
I must admit that I found it quite interesting (and entertaining) to read that Ben Bernanke could not refinance his house in Washington D.C. According to the article,
Bernanke already has refinanced twice. When the former Fed chair and his wife Anna bought their Capitol Hill rowhouse in May 2004,
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Gary Carmell
I typically wouldn’t discuss Tax Reform until it has passed since it would usually be speculative, I am making an exception given that many of the parameters are known and because of its potential impact on housing. The basis of the plan was to cut the corporate tax rate first and then work around the constraints that Senate rules and supposed deficit hawks impose on the process.
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Gary CarmellAs 2015 opens, like many of you, there are numerous questions I am pondering.
2015 Questions I’m Pondering
Oil
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Gary Carmell
The scandal surrounding the Internal Revenue Service and its seeming singling out of conservative, smaller government groups is understandably and deservedly getting a lot of media attention. It confirms everyone’s worst fears about government power used for political purposes to attack perceived enemies and sends a chill down the spines of those who believe in free speech and the right to exercise it.
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