Uncategorized The SPAC Fad Posted on October 20, 2020 By Matthew Garrott SPACs are having (another) moment. SPAC stands for Special Purpose Acquisition Company. Often referred to as “blank-check” companies, a SPAC is initially just a management team. The team raises funds via IPO. Investors bet that the team will buy a private business and make it more valuable. Usually, the team… Read more
Uncategorized Election Season Posted on August 14, 2020 By Matthew Garrott Election season can be difficult for investors of all political stripes. Uncertainty abounds. It’s easy to tie a piece of one’s identity to a candidate or party. If they win, we feel like winners. If they lose, we feel diminished. As far as investing goes, however, our candidates’ fates have… Read more
Uncategorized Where are the Bees? Posted on August 5, 2020 By Matthew Garrott “Where are the bees?” I saw this question asked on a local social media group recently. Several replies expressed the same sentiment. It seems like the neighborhood has a bee shortage, likely due to the overwhelming collapse of the world’s insect population. Surely the only insects left standing in a… Read more
Fast Animals Posted on July 15, 2020 By Matthew Garrott My last post was on April 24th. It’s safe to say a lot has happened since then. I’ve been on radio silence here because: I was writing quite a bit for work and needed to rest my brain Writing updates as a market is recovering is met with a great… Read more
Headlines, Mulch, and Evangelical Misery Posted on April 24, 2020 By Matthew Garrott Toilet paper aisles may be sparse, but one thing we’re not lacking is opinions on the pandemic. Everyone’s got their take and a pet conspiracy theory to go with it. Here’s mine: From a human standpoint, the United States has done a great job mobilizing (or immobilizing in this… Read more
Uncategorized Super Tuesday and Re-Branding the Coronavirus Posted on March 4, 2020 By Matthew Garrott Super Tuesday Joe Biden took control of the Democratic Primaries last night on Super Tuesday. Bernie Sanders was expected to win California which was supposed to maintain his lead even if Biden managed to close the gap somehow. It looks like Bernie’s momentum ran out instead. Joe Biden has taken… Read more
Uncategorized Coronavirus Update Posted on February 28, 2020February 28, 2020 By Matthew Garrott Here’s how I see it. The recovery since 4Q2018 was so smooth that the markets have been looking for a reason to sell off for a while. Acceleration dropped after 4Q2018 fell off of the 1 year numbers. The markets hiccuped after news of the coronavirus got really serious at… Read more
Uncategorized Coronavirus Fears Posted on February 24, 2020 By Matthew Garrott Stocks are off by about 3% this morning (as of noon on 2/24/2020) on fears that cases of coronavirus are accelerating outside of China. Should you worry? For the “general American public“, the answer is no. Does that mean that only an idiot would be concerned by this? No. Identifying… Read more
The Blog is Back! Posted on February 21, 2020 By Matthew Garrott MatthewGarrott.com started as an experiment. I really just wanted to know how a person went about setting up a website. Turns out, buying a domain is pretty cheap, so why not buy my own name? From there, I figured I’d at least put up some text or something to figure… Read more
Uncategorized Goldilocks and the Three Bulls Posted on November 15, 2019 By Matthew Garrott My monthly commentary for Fairway mentions three uncertainties: the trade conflict with China, Brexit, and the Fed. One way to look at it is through the lens of the beloved children’s tale of Goldilocks. I am breaking one of my rules by assigning human personality to the market, but if… Read more