An Office Lunch Table Thanksgiving Tale

At my Thanksgiving Day table we go around the room and ask each family member (31 this year) to relate just what it is for which they are most grateful. Responses are variously funny (“my big nose so I can better enjoy the smell of that wonderful pecan and pumpkin...

Results of Annual Semaphore PE Industry Confidence Survey

The Semaphore Confidence Survey respondents are truly prescient. If America had only listened to our results last year it would have saved the American people over a Billion dollars in advertisements and political machinations in the just concluded presidential...

Boston Lives

I had a lovely lunch at a great sushi place last week with a Limited Partner to whom I’d just become acquainted, nothing unusual there – except that the place is just a few runners strides from the finish line of the Boston Marathon. It was barely two days after the...

Beach Blanket Bingo?

Spring has finally made an appearance to New England after a long winter. Hot summer days spent languishing at the beach; margaritas by the pool or skimming on the lake in a new boat are moving their way to the front of everyone’s minds. No one thinks of stifling days...

Zombie Funds

Apocalyptic Future or Salvation? A few days ago Luisa Beltran of PE Hub asked whether and what we should call the now popular appellation “Zombie Funds”. I responded to her with the following: “Here at Semaphore we call them “clients”. No need for a pejorative...

Semaphore’s 2021 Confidence Survey Results!

“Bubble, baby II!” This was the comment left behind in the very last response received in our 13th annual Semaphore Confidence Survey. The comment “Bubble, baby” was my favorite economic analysis comment left a year ago. It seems some of you come back on an annual...