The Private Equity for Families Blog

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

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

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.

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

“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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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,

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 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

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