Market Insights
Would You Lend Money to This Man?
“I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today.” Wimpy Suppose a borrower walks into your office. We’ll call him Sam. Sam earns roughly $56,000 per year. Not extraordinary, but workable. Plenty of borrowers with similar income manage their finances responsibly. Then you open the file. Sam spends approximately $75,000
The Fifth Factor
“Capital isn’t scarce; vision is.” Sam Walton Every Economics 101 student learns the four factors of production: land, labor, capital, and entrepreneurship. I’d argue there has always been a fifth: government. Not because government creates wealth. In fact, it’s oftentimes the biggest impediment to wealth creation. Rather, competent government provides the
When Good News is Bad
“Interest rates are to asset prices what gravity is to matter.” Warren Buffett May’s jobs report came in much stronger than expected. U.S. payrolls increased by 172,000, easily topping consensus expectations of roughly 85,000, and the prior two months were revised higher by a combined 93,000. With all the hand-wringing
Home Equity Investment Agreements: Fortune or Folly?
“Money often costs too much.” Ralph Waldo Emerson For homeowners sitting on substantial equity but reluctant—or unable—to take out a traditional loan, a newer product has been gaining traction: the home equity investment agreement, or HEI. The pitch is appealing: Get cash today. No monthly payment. No interest rate. No
Economic Check-Up
“A recession is when your neighbor loses his job. A depression is when you lose yours.” Ronald Reagan. If you simply read the headlines, you would likely come away with a sense of dismay, if not outright alarm. The 24-hour news cycle is in full swing, and every article seems
The Affordability “Crisis”
“Everything is amazing and nobody’s happy.” Louis C.K. “Affordability” has become one of those political words that sounds meaningful until you stop and ask what it actually means. The media uses it. Politicians weaponize it. Entire narratives are built around it. Housing is unaffordable. Food is unaffordable. Healthcare is unaffordable.
Do You Speak Credit?
“Give me control of a nation’s money and I care not who makes it’s laws” Mayer Rothschild When most people say “the market,” they usually mean stocks. If they’re feeling speculative, maybe crypto. If they are in real estate, they’re probably thinking housing. But among the many markets that make
The Price of Money
“The most important item over time in valuation is interest rates.” — Warren Buffett Every market has a price. Labor has wages. Goods have prices. Real estate has rents. Capital has a cost. And money, the most important coordinating mechanism in a modern economy, has a price as well. That
The Fear Trade
“Profits are compensation for pain and suffering. First comes pain, then comes money.” André Kostolany. Within minutes of the U.S. and Israel’s strike on Iran, oil jumps, gold rallies, the VIX (volatility index) spikes, Treasury yields fall, the dollar strengthens, and stock futures turn red. The classic risk-off trade. When uncertainty
