Lou Barnes

Contributor

After five years as Marketing Manager of a mountaineering clothing and equipment manufacturer and retailer (a great way to enjoy your 20s), Lou Barnes built 45-broker, two-office Spruce Real Estate in Colorado from 1978-83, spending most of his time guiding the firm through extremely high interest rates. The world of money was more fun for him than real estate, and Barnes sold Spruce and joined investment banking ranks for five years as Managing Partner of RCM Government Securities, a broker-dealer working on the early flow of mortgages to Wall Street and their related derivatives. Two of those years involved work on the heart of the savings and loan meltdown -- one of the "consultants" commuting to Texas, Arkansas and other Southwestern garden spots (fortunately, he spoke the language: his family were Okies), he was asked to figure out how deep the hole was going to be. He wrote one of the earliest accurate estimates of the ultimate cost in 1986, and was one of the first to address the necessary asset workouts. Some people thrive in a career on airplanes, and Barnes was not one of them. In 1988 the homebody began another career as a mortgage banker in Boulder, just in time to catch the terrible peak of foreclosures afflicting the greater "Oil Patch" and "Savings and Loan Belt." The firm, Boulder West, survived and thrived as a small mortgage bank -- very old-fashioned, strictly "A" paper, and based on long-term relationships with Realtors and past clients. Even with that strength, Boulder West closed in 2009, and Lou and many of his colleagues joined far-larger Premier Mortgage Group. As a marketing tool and for sanity, Lou has written a weekly column on the financial markets every Friday for 20 years.

Who will be hurt when the Fed raises rates?

The choke point for first-timers is not the mortgage payment

Dec 9

The most important thing about tightening? How long, how long

This will be the 9th tightening cycle since 1955

Dec 4

Opinion

When market micro-analyses are useful -- and when they miss the mark

The public doesn’t care about the aggregate; civilians and Realtors care about particular houses

Dec 2

Nobody believes the Fed will be aggressive (except its bird-brained hawks)

The Fed sent more signals this week that liftoff will happen in December

Nov 20

Fed liftoff expected in Dec. -- good thing we've had plenty of runway

An overwhelming consensus of economists expects Fed liftoff at last in December. Good thing we’ve had several hundred miles of runway. An equally overwhelming consensus in the bond market thinks the Fed may get the bird airborne, but not for long. Nor for good reason.

Nov 13

Outside the Fed, anxiety-ridden birds have begun to pluck out their own feathers

After today’s employment report, the Fed is a united hawk-nest

Nov 6

If the economy continues at its current pace, the risks of tightening far outweigh the risks of not

The weekly economic report from broker Lou Barnes

Oct 30

Were it not for the rest of the world’s self-entanglement, the US would be rocking

This is the great disconnect of our time.

Oct 23

The Fed has become far too tolerant of voices dissenting in public

More serious than dissent: Throughout Yellen’s first year, the Fed has looked silly by insisting on imminent liftoff