First, they were primarily veteran investors who have been investing at least as long as the recent boom-bust real estate cycle that peaked in 2006 and bottomed out in 2012.

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Wall Street has enthusiastically financed mortgage lenders over the latest real estate boom cycle, providing loans for companies such as New Century to fund new mortgages that the investment firms could buy up, package into bundles of securities and sell to yield-hungry investors.

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This is the stuff of which bull markets are made: A favorable credit cycle, real estate recovery and government reform are all underpinning strength in Japanese equities.

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Signor has been active in Texas real estate and energy businesses (depending on the cycle) since the early 1990s, and was working on an industrial park in South Texas when he saw the spartan state of temporary housing that was springing up to house drilling workers in the fast-developing oilfields there.

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Most markets cycle through similar sequences, but the timing is asymmetrical between consumer and commercial, real estate lending and corporate bonds.

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The good news is, you can take the cautionary tales of the stock game, the mortgage game and the real estate game and figure out how you want to be positioned when the inevitable boom-bust-hatred cycle shifts into high gear.

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