About TomPowell
Thomas J. Powell is Chief Executive Officer at ELP Capital as well as the Chief Investment Officer for ELP Capital’s affiliated investment company - ELP Capital Advisors, a Registered Investment Advisor. Tom is a highly regarded author and is recognized as an innovative investment manager with particular expertise in credit risk analysis, distressed debt recovery, and deal structure. He understands the practical application of money management in response to risk on both Wall Street and Main Street. Tom has made understanding and effectively maximizing money resources his life’s work for more than 20 years, regardless of the direction in which the market’s currents are running.
Tom began his banking career with Wells Fargo Bank in 1988 and has more than twenty years of banking, mortgage banking, and finance experience. He holds a BS in Finance, an MBA in Real Estate, and is a member of Harvard University’s Advanced Management Development Program in Real Estate.
Tom is a widely sought after speaker, international guest lecturer, and is an Instructor in the Office of Executive Education at Harvard University. Tom is the author of Standing In The Rain, a guide book to understanding, surviving and thriving in the worst financial storm since the Great Depression; Comparing Real Estate Investments, Using Excel in conjunction with the HBS case study - Angus Cartwright III©; and has co-authored the book series Real Life Habits for Success. In addition, he publishes a weekly economic newsletter and podcast The Powell Perspective. Tom is involved in numerous community and industry groups, including serving as a National Trustee for the Boys and Girls Clubs of America. He and his wife, Tonya, are the proud parents of four children and three dogs.
As markets continue to produce signs of stabilization over the next quarter, it is unlikely that unemployment figures will show much improvement. With figures the highest they have been in more than 25 years, unemployment appears to have neared its peak. Lowering the rate to levels our economy can adequately support will prove to be a daunting task. But, with [...]
With a bad habit of ignoring profound systemic problems, Federal Treasury officials are now securing a system that encourages the same careless risk-taking that originally got us into this mess. With this week marking the one-year anniversary since Lehman Brothers imploded, it is only appropriate to discuss the faulty system that protects and rewards failing financial institutions. The [...]
Earlier this week, after wrestling with the spate of painful economic news provided by major media, I recognized that I had no immediate control over any of the massive economic concerns. The stock market zigged when I hoped it would zag. Unemployment numbers, often reported differently, moved at different paces in the undesirable direction. Our federal deficit grew, which increased [...]
Reasonable Regulation: That’s Allstate’s Stand Many companies involved in financial services cower when an official of any stature mentions the threat of national regulation, but Allstate has decided to embrace it. Since late April, Allstate has been pushing an advertising campaign that is rooted in support for creating a national regulation agency for all players in the financial industry, [...]
Stats Won’t Save Us Every day, and every minute somewhere on the Web, another statistic that hints at an economic recovery is reported, copied, translated, manipulated and reevaluated. It seems for every positive up tick in economic numbers, there is also a negative. We have been experiencing shaky times for the past 20 months. Every sector is not going to [...]
Cash for Clunkers Part II: Dealers Have Clunkers, No Cash In last week’s first Cash for Clunkers installment, Cash for Clunkers Part I: Good for Businesses?, I discussed the potential threat the program poses for small businesses. This week I am presenting Part II. Auto dealers across the country have been accepting qualified jalopies from consumers in exchange [...]
Once Bitten: Learning to Trust Real Estate Again The housing bust burned real-estate investors. Even more frightening, many investors were blindsided by the bust because “credible” officials as high up as then -Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan were convincing them housing was immune to speculative bubbling. At some point, however, investors will be wise to forgive the real-estate market and [...]
Yeah, There’s a Czar for That It is beginning to appear that the job of high-up elected officials is simply to hire others to oversee the issues we elected them to solve. President Obama has appointed a czar for nearly every significant issue that faces his administration. According to a recent article in the Chicago Tribune, “Republican Sen. John McCain [...]
Subprime Lenders, Transformed With shady subprime-lending practices behind us, former subprime lenders have been forced to put their devious skills to work elsewhere. The complexities of loan modifications have attracted many ex-lending predators and provided them a vehicle to employ their corruption. Now no one is saying that each and every person involved in loan modification is corrupt. In that [...]
The New “R” Word: Reset Over the past 18 months, we have been inundated with bleak tales of economic strife. Inevitably, the media has worn us all thin with their never-ending string of bad news. Yes, we are stuck in the thick of a very painful recession. Unemployment rates are flirting with double digits, fears of inflation are beginning to [...]
Thomas J. Powell – Reasonable Regulation: That’s Allstate’s Stand
Reasonable Regulation: That’s Allstate’s Stand Many companies involved in financial services cower when an official of any stature mentions the threat of national regulation, but Allstate has decided to embrace it. Since late April, Allstate has been pushing an advertising campaign that is rooted in support for creating a national regulation agency for all players in the financial industry, [...]