PE4FAMs Blog

Central banks consider deflation a “devil child” because of its pernicious psychology. Deflation encourages waiting for purchases until they get cheaper—which they do every day as demand is delayed. The result is a downward price spiral and slow GDP growth. Even though this sounds good for the consumer, it is bad for countries and people […]

College friends are brutally honest. So, it came as no surprise to me in a Zoom cocktail chat with former classmates over the weekend there was some curiosity but even more suspicion, about Bitcoin’s recent price rises. Here is BTC’s chart over the two years from the May 6, 2020, “The Daily Shot”. I called my

One of the funniest and most memorable Saturday Night Live skits was John Belushi and The Olympia Restaurant. That New York diner provided customers with a full menu of food choices, but only  served “Cheeseburger; Pepsi no Coke; and no fries, chips.” Regular patrons like Gilda Radner just ordered the “usual”. Newer customers started with

The current safety net programs being offered by the Federal Reserve Bank are widespread. They include the Paycheck Protection Program (“PPP”) safety net of 8 weeks of payroll subsidy for companies that have existing Small Business Administration loans. They also include Fed purchases of a wide swath of debt instruments including collateralized loan obligations, mortgage

As a society we have been moving at 80mph most of my adult life. There is endless stimulation from people, meetings, media, business, religion, socialization, travel, sports, entertainment, literature, the stock and bond markets, internet and iPhones. Sometimes we are moving so fast we never have time to process what is happening. The only silver

In a recent conversation about asset allocation with an astute growth investor, I was surprised he dismissed the possibility of a socialist as President. He simply could not see that happening and, therefore, it could not serve as a reason for changing a traditional 60 percent equity/40 percent bond mix in a target allocation. He

When we started our private equity firm 20 years ago, high net worth individuals and institutions were interested in the asset class for three big reasons: Outperformance versus the Stock Market Lack of Correlation to Publicly Traded Asset Classes Persistent Outperformance by Top Quartile Managers. McKinsey & Company just released a report on Private Equity

I was waiting at a traffic light in Naples Florida, and a radio jingle about “going first class” with Marcus by Goldman Sachs captured my attention.  Goldman is selling savings accounts called “Marcus” to the masses and advertising on the radio???? This wasn’t the Goldman Sachs I remember. The feared counterparty no one wanted to

A January 9, 2020, Wall Street Journal article by James Mackintosh entitled “Money Losing Stocks Mushroom Even As Stocks Hit New Highs” cautions about the high percentage of publicly traded stocks that show three years of losses but still are experiencing significant price appreciation. Here is a chart from his article showing smaller stocks are

Mark Twain is credited with saying “History Does Not Repeat Itself, But It does Rhyme”.   So, as we enter year 2020, I looked for the last year in the United States history that repeated, and also the only other year in the Julian calendar which both repeats and also follows the first decade. What I