Lord Rothschild’s advice to “buy when there is blood on the street” is perfectly apt in the bombed-out carnage of US office REITs, where stocks have fallen on a quantum scale more than the value of the underlying brick and mortar. Vacancy rates have spiked in the post-pandemic, remote/hybrid work zeitgeist of 2023, the Fed’s […]
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Another Rate Hike? Let’s Not
The Federal Open Market Committee opted not to raise its interest rate target at its September 20 meeting. The range for the federal funds rate remains 5.25-5.50 percent. However, several Fed officials hinted another hike could come later in the year. Do we need tighter monetary policy? The FOMC also released its latest Summary of Economic Projections (SEP) on […]
Corporatism and Convict Leasing in the American South
Since the 1619 Project’s release, proponents of free markets have rightly pushed back on the claim that American capitalism is irrevocably linked to racism and slavery. In a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed, David Henderson and Phil Magness demonstrate that most of the injustice that was presented in episode three of the 1619 Project’s Hulu docuseries was perpetrated by […]
Don’t panic over the latest inflation numbers
Inflation is back! Or so the commentariat would have you believe. The Consumer Price Index (CPI) grew 0.6 percent in August, significantly higher than the previous six monthly increases. Consumer prices have grown 3.7 percent over the last twelve months. If prices were to grow as fast as they did in August for the next […]
US inflation is back on target
After more than two years of high inflation, the Federal Reserve finally has inflation back on target. The Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index (PCEPI) has grown at a continuously compounding annual rate of 2.1 percent over the last three months, new data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis shows. Bond markets are pricing in roughly 2 […]
Not all property recessions are the same
Originally published February 2021. For investors, the recent decline in retail property performance might suggest opportunity for acquiring property at distressed pricing. The challenge for such investors is to identify discounts associated with the covid-induced recession versus discounts associated with the structural distress in the retail sector. Investors might similarly expect distressed opportunity to emerge […]
The Fed Hits 3,000 Percent Inflation
The US economy was pushed to extremes during the pandemic recession and subsequent recovery. The unemployment rate peaked at 14.7 percent, the highest in the post-World War II period. Inflation reached its highest rate in 40 years, prompting the Fed to raise short-term interest rates to their highest levels since 2007. As of June, the economy hit another dubious milestone: […]
Messi is Moving to Miami: Who’s the Biggest Winner?
In May 2021, one of the best soccer players in the world announced he was coming to play Major League Soccer (MLS). Lionel Messi, currently 36 years old, rejected a record-breaking $400 million a year in order to come to play for Inter Miami Football Club. Messi’s deal not only includes a paycheck of $50-60 million dollars a year, […]
REIT executives outlook in a rising interest rate environment
Recently, Armada ETF Advisors attended the NYU Schack REIT Symposium where multiple REIT CEOs and industry participants spoke on a variety of panels and topics such as interest rates, cap rates and the current lending environment. Speaking on these topics, VICI Properties noted that they continue to focus on transition from offense to defence (and […]
Can the Fed Continue to Fight Inflation without Risking a Financial Crisis?
Originally published May 2023. Since March, we have experienced three of the largest bank failures in United States history. Silicon Valley Bank, Signature Bank, and New Republic Bank had combined assets worth over half a trillion dollars — roughly equivalent to the combined assets of the 165 banks that failed in 2008 and 2009. The Federal Reserve […]