Blog Archives

Powerful Lessons from Tennis in the Desert

Tennis in the Dessert

I had the incredible pleasure of attending the BNP Paribas tennis tournament in Indian Wells, California. It is a beautiful facility and was purchased by Larry Ellison in 2009 and he has spared no expense to have it live up to the vision of it being a tennis paradise.

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A Graphical Extravaganza with a Little Hemingway Thrown in

I thought I would return to a post focusing on charts that I found compelling this past week. The Fed is now telegraphing an imminent slowdown of its purchases of Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities. The reaction of bond investors led to a narrowing of the yield curve.

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Energy Crunch - The Co(a)ld Hard Facts and Opportunities

Energy Crunch - The Co(a)ld Hard Facts and Opportunities

One can see that natural gas has gained the most market share of the world energy supply between 1973-2019. Oil’s share has dropped quite significantly during this same time frame. With that being said the second chart shows that it has still grown materially but not nearly as much as natural gas and nuclear.

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Soar with your Strengths, Not your Passions: More Advice for your Kids

public speaking Soar with your Strengths, Not your Passions

A few years ago I did 23andMe. I was not only curious about my ancestry but what medical risks might be present based on my DNA. Fortunately, I don’t appear to be predisposed to any serious ailments. Over the course of its many years in business,

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The Hard Truth for your Children - Build up Your Soft Skills

soft skills

There is no doubt that technological innovation has automated more tasks and this will only become more pronounced with the greater use of artificial intelligence and robotics. This has created a greater demand for workers who have “soft” skills since routine job tasks are becoming more automated or commoditized.

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Dead, Alive, Vigor and Vitality - Learning from Bob Weir

Bob Weir John Mayer Dead and Company Tour 2021

Last week was one of leisure travel which is something I haven’t done in a while. The tail end of the trip included a stay in Newport, Rhode Island. It just so happened that Dead & Company was playing about an hour north in Mansfield,

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Space, the New Frontier

Space Real Estate migration

Urban locations with great walkability were in great demand…until Covid hit. These locations became far less desirable as congregating was either not allowed in large numbers or people didn’t want to gather together in close quarters for fear of exposing themselves to Covid.

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Timeless Investment Wisdom

timeless investment wisdom

I recently finished reading The Razor’s Edge by W. Somerset Maugham and I enjoyed it quite a bit. It definitely has a strong spiritual undertone set in an era when this was sorely lacking (the 1920s and 1930s, although the hard times of that period brought spirituality more to the forefront).

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Afghan Realities and Applications to Planning

Taliban Afghanistan

One of the reasons I am such a big fan of Charlie Munger is that he is ruthlessly realistic. He and Warren Buffett believe that the key to Berkshire Hathaway’s incredible success is that they are built for rationality.

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Back to the Future

Back to the Future Homeowner

At the depths of the Great Recession in 2008 and 2009, it was nearly impossible to determine what the right valuation metric was to value apartment investments. Fear was pervasive, people didn’t know if Net Operating Incomes (NOIs) were going to fall off a cliff, lenders were very conservative,

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