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 over layoffs, recession fears, and […]
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 new loan payment. Well… sort […]
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 to present a dour perspective […]
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. Life, apparently, is unaffordable. Fine. […]
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 up a modern economy; equities, […]
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 price is the interest rate, […]
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 rises, investors seek safety. Capital […]
“The Economy” vs “Your Economy”
Weekly Blog #25 “Perception is reality.” If you’ve felt whiplash reading the headlines this past year, you’re not crazy. On paper, “the economy” did just fine: output grew, inflation cooled from prior highs, and unemployment stayed low by historic standards. Yet plenty of households still feel squeezed, frustrated, or just plain uncertain. Both can be […]
Crypto is Dead–Or is it?
Weekly Blog #24 “Rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated.” Mark Twain (paraphrased) Every time crypto sells off hard, the same declaration gets dusted off: “This time it’s different. Crypto (or tech stocks, real estate, precious metals, etc.) is dead.” And yet here we are again, still talking about it. Bitcoin has been declared […]
All that Glitters
Weekly Blog #23 “Gold is money. Everything else is credit.” J.P. Morgan Gold and silver are on a tear. Gold has surged to new highs, silver is finally waking up from a long nap, and—almost on cue—the U.S. dollar is sliding. None of this is random, and none of it should be surprising. Precious metals […]
