Market Watch

A Persistent Optimist

4th Quarter 2018 Market Watch by Joe A. Hollingsworth, Jr. As readers of the Market Watch articles know since September 2016, I have been a persistent optimist about what should happen to the manufacturing and distribution industrial space sector. I have covered: 1) the accelerating GDP; 2) the ever-increasing on-shoring

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Build Baby Build!

3rd Quarter 2018 Hotline Market Watch by Joe A. Hollingsworth, Jr. Well, officially, we are in the second longest economic expansion ever! And, as I said before, there is an awful lot of naysayers, and they cannot help but talk about it constantly. However, they are wrong! The tax cut

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A Couple of Thoughts for the Future

2nd Quarter 2018 Hotline Market Watch by Joe A. Hollingsworth, Jr. As it pertains to construction as an industry, for thousands of years, we have basically performed construction with materials that are largely from the earth such as clay, wood, iron ore, limestone, crude oil based materials, etc. Now, things are on the cusp

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The Fear of Asking for Rent Increases

1st Quarter 2018 Hotline Market Watch by Joe A. Hollingsworth, Jr. For the last decade, landlords have had those calls that will absolutely ruin a landlord’s day from tenants saying that they need a “downward rent adjustment” or “shortened term or to shrink their space”. We have become so accustomed to hearing those requests

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Economic Cycle

4th Quarter 2017 Hotline Market Watch by Joe A. Hollingsworth, Jr. By now, you have read it over 50 times. You have heard it on TV over 30 times. Sometimes it just seems to be relentless…that the media has to drive home the point that we are in an economic

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Blowing and Going

3rd Quarter 2017 Hotline Market Watch by Joe A. Hollingsworth, Jr. At the end of the first quarter in 2017, the US industrial market has really never been stronger. Specifically, only 5.4% of the nation’s industrial space was vacant; and, it turns out that this percentage is the lowest rate on record. Even

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Democracy and Capitalism

2nd Quarter 2017 Hotline Market Watch by Joe A. Hollingsworth, Jr. Instead of direct comments on industrial real estate, I wanted to share some thoughts on democracy and capitalism. My belief is that democracy and capitalism literally go hand in hand. People generally cannot believe in democracy if it doesn’t bring happiness through improving

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The Trump Bump

1st Quarter 2017 Hotline Market Watch by Joe A. Hollingsworth, Jr. The so-called “Trump Revolution” that has one-half of America seemingly in despair and the other half in euphoria, from our industrial perspective, is a good thing. The full control by the Republicans of the White House, Senate, and House

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Laboring for a Better Labor Market

4th Quarter 2016 Hotline Market Watch by Joe A. Hollingsworth, Jr. After making the recent decision to keep interest rates down, Chairwoman Yellen cited an improving labor market specifically noting that labor force participation was improving off multi-decade lows. Her interpretation is that improving wages are drawing more Americans into

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Government Policy

3rd Quarter 2016 Hotline Market Watch by Joe A. Hollingsworth, Jr. When one focuses all their time on developing products and delivering them to customers, it can be tempting to take government policy as an unchangeable impediment or enhancement to business.  But, governments are competing for talent, investments and risk

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