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The Private Equity for Families Blog

Insight for those interested in private equity or direct investment in privately-held businesses. The opinions expressed in the PE4Fams blog are those of Rob McCreary and not necessarily those of CW Industrial Partners or its employees.

Fed Overshoot Inflating Cleveland and Detroit?

Although the recent inflation message from Chairman Jerome Powell in response to Congressional inquiries is heartening, it does not jive with some really lopsided conditions I am seeing that remind me of the 1970s. Here is what Chairman Powell said on March 23, 2021 as he and Treasury Secretary

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A League of Their Own… Almost

My winter experience in Southwest Florida included watching the “BMFR” index redline at levels of conspicuous wealth not seen in my lifetime. For those of you who do not visit the Naples area, the BMFR index is the number of Bentley’s, Maserati’s, Ferraris and Rolls Royce’s you see on

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Post Pandemic Lifestyles And Our Hamster Wheel Society

As we emerge from our Covid-19 caves and rejoin business, commercial and personal worlds, I have begun to wonder what institutions, interactions, professions, entertainment and lifestyles will be altered in a material way. For most of my life I have been on a hamster wheel of expected behaviors like

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An Insider’s Tutorial On Programmatic Trading

I have a friend who has spent most of his career upgrading the plumbing on Wall Street.  He is not a pipe wrench plumber, but rather one of the architects of the programmatic trading platforms for some of the 40 providers of liquidity that comprise the US stock market.

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Decentralized Finance Products Are Like Climbing Everest

If you think trying to understand Bitcoin (BTC) and its blockchain is difficult, wait until you have your first encounter with decentralized banking or insurance products. It will seem as daunting and risky as climbing Everest without a sherpa. Because I am not qualified to guide in this emerging

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You May Miss The Middleman

My generation’s interaction with money, wealth, art, music, communication, commercial real estate, credit, finance, personal real estate, insurance and social interaction has mostly been through trusted third parties like Chase Bank, Goldman Sachs, Fidelity, Sotheby, National Title, Experian, Moody’s, Berkshire Hathaway, Depositary Trust Clearing Corp, ASCAP, Facebook, Apple and

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The Captain Crunch of All Squeezes

Someone’s investment gyroscope is completely out of whack. For most of my investment life I have tried to discover unseen gems among the trash heap of abandoned stocks. These might be stocks with good revenue growth, low debt, high cash flows, a defensible position relative to other competitors and

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Modern Monetary Misgivings

I wish I could join the throng of euphoric pundits who are now advocating Modern Monetary Theory (“MMT”). Most of them equate MMT with the ascendancy of central banks and their invincibility procuring worldwide prosperity even in the face of one of the swiftest business reversals in my lifetime.

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Bitcoin On The Front Page…Of Your Tax Return

Bitcoin looks like a juicy federal and state revenue source for 2020. Based on the chart shown from the buybitcoinworldwide.com website below, there has been approximately $304 billion of capital appreciation in the cryptocurrency since January 1, 2020. It is pretty much a guess about what portion of that

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Customizing Index Funds Like Playlists

“Tell Her No” was a classic rock hit from a British rock group The Zombies. The 1965 lyrics should be exhumed and applied to the runaway market appreciation in those public stocks where operating earnings do not even cover the annual interest expense: “And if she should tell you

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States Are Badly Bruised By Covid-19

For the last three months we have been so fixated on red and blue states we hardly noticed how many “black and blue” states are struggling from the pandemic’s onslaught. Unlike the Federal system where money printing of all kinds and deficit spending are accepted monetary policy tools, states

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A Race To The Bottom The US Can’t Win

Few people really understand how currencies work. It requires math to figure out how much more or less a cup of coffee (Starbucks), or a hamburger (Big Mac), costs in Boston versus the same products in Moscow, Shanghai or Hamburg. If we had a universal currency like Bitcoin or

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Ant IPO Showcases South China Equity Markets

The world has 10 major stock exchanges, three of which are either controlled or influenced by China. Here are those exchanges: Exchange Established Mkt. Cap New York Stock Exchange May 1792 $19.3T NASDAQ February 1971 $13.8T Tokyo Stock Exchange January 2003 $5.7T Shanghai Stock Exchange November 1990 $4.9T Hong

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Minor League Owners and Congress Balk At MLB Pick Off

This is the time of year when you can actually find child like joy in your Major League Baseball (MLB) teams. Take the Cleveland Indians with their small market budget as an example. Not-withstanding, their loss of an important starter, Mike Clevinger, the Tribe has actually secured a playoff

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Like Pizza, Stocks Now Come in Slices

I remember the Over-The-Counter Trading Desk at a regional securities firm called Prescott, Ball& Turben (PBT) where I was employed in the Mergers & Acquisitions group from 1987-92.  Trading small stocks was an art with high commissions and limited liquidity.  Good trading desks did not “position” securities by holding

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Presto Change-O Cures Everything

For most politicians the US economy is a fable, like the magic coffee grinder in the story about “How the Sea Got Salty”. According to legend the owner of the coffee grinder was a poor farmer who first used the magic grinder to provide food and shelter for his

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The Book of Exodus Portends More Money Printing

When the Israelites fled Egypt under Moses’ leadership they were constantly attacked by the Amalekites.  In the valley of Rephidim the Israelites under the command of Joshua, met Amalek in a battle where Moses guaranteed his general a victory as long as Moses could oversee the fighting. According to

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Covid-19 Challenges The Hamster Wheel of Sales & Marketing

We have watched quite closely the first half financial performance of our portfolio of lower middle market companies. Almost all of them have benefitted from four trends that have accelerated in the pandemic:             Business Travel Has Stopped             Business Entertainment Has Been Curtailed             Capital Expenditures Have Focused

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The Fed’s Bay of Fundy Moment

I have written before about moon tides (and how they remind us about investment markets tending to exaggerate fear or greed) https://capitalworks.net/moon-tides/. Dangerous shoals are hidden when the tide is 20% higher and keels are in the mud or on the rocks when the moon tide has fully ebbed.

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Hertz Bankruptcy: Who’s In The Driver’s Seat?

Bankruptcy is a little bit like the Greeks’ vision of Hell or Hades. There is a river you have to cross called the Styx with a ferryman called Charon whom you have to pay with a coin for safe passage. If your relatives forgot to bury you with a

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If You Give a Politician a Printing Press?

Laura Numeroff writes really popular children’s’ books. She is famous for her series on animals: “If You Give A Moose A Muffin”, “If You Give A Mouse A Cookie”, “If You Give A Pig A Pancake”, and many others. These are fun books for kids because of alliteration and

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This blog represents the views of Rob McCreary and do not reflect those of CW Industrial Partners or its employees. This blog is not intended as investment advice. Any discussion of a specific security is for illustrative purposes only and should not be relied upon as indicative of such security’s current or future value. Readers should consult with their own financial advisors before making an investment decision.