Blog Archives

COVID-19, Catch-22, Treasury-117

COVID 19 Coronavirus

With over $6 trillion in global stock market losses in one week, it’s clear that investors have woken up to the real risk that the coronavirus is not contained, somewhat akin to the subprime crisis that Ben Bernanke famously said was and led to massive financial losses around the world.

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Revisiting the Spanish Flu: What Can a Dire Pandemic Look Like?

Pandemics

I’m admittedly obsessed by pandemics. I’ve been listening to the course on the Black Death via the Great Courses, I was in China at the tail end of SARS in 2003 and was intensely focused on what life was like during that time there, and of course,

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The Power of Mindset

CWS State of the Company Mindset

Last week we completed seven of our eleven State of the Company meetings that Tracy Hayes, the president of our sister company CWS Corporate Housing, and I have been doing for 26 years. And while it’s a lot of travel in a relatively short period of time,

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Expectations & Credibility - Lessons for Parents, Leaders, & Managers

Leaders Listening

I must confess that one of my guilty pleasures involves eavesdropping. I find people fascinating, particularly when it comes to learning about what motivates them, what they do, their opinions about issues, and their nuances that make them unique. 

Leaders Lessons Learned Listening

I was recently having breakfast and sitting out on the patio next to a group of four younger guys,

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The Last Decade in Charts - Here Come the Roaring 20's

Charts

With the 2010s having come to an end and the roaring 20s starting I thought I would look back over the past decade to convey key trends that impacted the economy and apartment investors.

I would summarize it as a decade of continued aggressive Federal Reserve involvement in the economy through continued low-interest rates and expansion of its balance sheet.

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2020 - Coming in Hot

2020 Coming in Hot

2020 has started off with some geopolitical fireworks that have carried over to financial markets as the headline below attests.

U.S. Kill Iranian Military Leader Qassem Soleimani

This is another good example of why having a hedge with U.S. Treasuries (and maybe a little gold as well) can be helpful to provide a counterweight to risk assets that inevitably take a mild beating,

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Growth and Stability – How Could Apartments Ever Be Obsolete!

CWS Apartment Communities - Growth

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

CWS Investors

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

Fed Repo Newton's Third Law

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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Bessembinder: A Fascinating But Skewed Study

Bessembinder

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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