From the category archives:

AFN

REITs Right Now

September 10, 2008

“I believe non-dividend stocks aren’t much more than baseball cards.” Mark Cuban I wonder what Cuban would say about those REITs currently sporting 20% dividend yields? Some REITs certainly do look enticing, but not all yields are created equal. In fact, Alesco finally came clean last week (Thursday, Sept. 11), announcing that it would be […]

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Wrecked REITs: Don’t Quote Me On It!

July 26, 2008

Alesco Financial in the land of the living dead May 7, 2007: “As of the end of the first quarter, we had fully invested stuffed ourselves silly with dodgy Trups all of the capital raised in 2006 manic bubble mania! in asset classes which have exhibited historically low default rates and which we believe will […]

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Alesco & The Land of the Living Dead

July 16, 2008

REITWrecks: July 16, 2008 Where to start? First, a mea culpa: I wish I had written about this more explicitly a lot sooner. Alesco was first brought to my attention during the Accredited Home Lender fiasco (then public and trading under the symbol “LEND”). LEND had been crippled by the credit crisis, and it had […]

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The Trouble With TruPs

June 18, 2008

After looking at some potential apartment acquisitions in Ohio last week (shameless plug: Chris Germain, San Francisco), American Airlines flew me back home through the lively metropolis of St. Louis. During the layover, I had a chance to read the St. Louis Business Journal, which featured on its front page a story about bad loans […]

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Risk Rising on Alesco’s REIT Status

April 9, 2008

CDOs are back in the headlines – again. The old story is that they are defaulting in record numbers. If you bought CDOs in 2006, you might as well have been buying penny stocks. Indeed, few now seem to be generating any income for anyone, except for the lawyers that are now starting to unwind […]

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Muddled REIT Book Values Create Opportunities

March 11, 2008

REITWrecks: March 11, 2008 Investing in REITs is not for the faint of heart these days. Write-downs are easier to come by than cheap commissions, and huge losses are more common than ice cubes in a fresh cocktail. And while you may need a cocktail if you own any of these stocks, calculating GAAP book […]

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