If there is any market that demonstrates the complete and total misallocation of capital that results from Banana Ben Bernanke’s money printing and artificially low interest rate policy, it the latest phony American housing bubble. With a record numbers of citizens on the food stamp electronic breadline, with unemployment stubbornly high no matter what data you use, billionaire financial oligarchs are running around bidding up “homes for rent” and pricing out the [...]
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Dave Lutz of Stifel, Nicolaus passes along some thoughts. We summarize: Everything started earlier with Germany. There’s a belief that Germany will “capitulate” and let the ECB pump more. Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/april-23-why-markets-are-rallying-2013-4#ixzz2RIWOcYp4 Let’s recap: *Federal Reserve says they want to quit printing money (yeah right lol) *Goldman Sacks cuts expectations on gold (forcing a sell off) *500 tons of paper gold dumped on Friday (more pressure for sell off) *DHS insider says collapse will happen in spring after metals get slammed (he’s right so far) *Another insider says planned collapse to happen on April 25 *Those mysterious 100,000 put options expire on April 20 & April 25
Today’s Homebuilder Confidence [...] Stocks Slump Most In 6 Weeks; Bonds Best Close Of Year
Treasuries closed at their lowest yield of the year – around 1.81% - and the Dow ended down triple-digits as the S&P saw its biggest down day in six weeks. Volume was 25% above average. The rally’s leaders were smashed - Homebuilders suffered the most on the day – now down 4% post Cyprus (along with Materials) but it is Financials that have [...] From housing starts to home prices, renowned economist Robert Shiller acknowledged “there are a lot of positive signs” for the U.S. housing market right now, but told CNBC Wednesday it’s still unclear if a recovery is actually in place. After all, Shiller noted the housing futures market for single-family homes was only “mildly optimistic” before superstorm Sandy struck the U.S.’s East Coast with expectations for just 3 percent growth per year over the next four [...] VANCOUVER (Silver Gold Bull) — It’s impossible to cover developments in the global economy without feeling a lot like Alice in Wonderland surrounded by legions of Mad Hatters. This is especially true when covering the realm of anti-logic known as the U.S. economy. We’re told that the U.S. economy has been experiencing an “economic recovery” for the past 3+ years — led by manufacturing growth — while its energy consumption has [...] Here’s Bloomberg with the details: America may not sell many new homes (read – sales are near or at all time lows), but that does not prevent homebuilders from having a dream, or in this case confidence that soon, soon, SOON, things will finally improve. Sure enough, in May the NAHB homebuilder confidence soared to 29, from 24, on expectations of a 26 print. Of course, these numbers are completely meaningless, and only serve to get the [...] ALARMING CHART: This Surge In Apple Looks Like Exactly Like Two Other Bubbles That Ended In DisasterWe’ve written before about the parabolic move in Apple, and how it’s freaked out bulls who think it’s the kind of thing that happens exactly before the market crashes. Doug Kass compared Apple today to Google before the market peak in 2007, showing how nicely the two aligned. In their big quarterly market outlook, Stifel Nicolaus does basically the same thing, except this time they compare it to two previous peaks: Homebuilders at their peak, and tech at the NASDAQ [...] From Pragmatic Capitalism: Here is an update to an article I posted in September 2011, describing the leading indication that lumber prices give for the shares of housing-related stocks. Back then, it was saying that a rally was ahead for homebuilders, building materials providers, and others involved in the housing industry. And that opinion ran contrary to what was being voiced by a lot of other analysts at the time. Now, the [...] From Bloomberg: The Obama administration will extend mortgage assistance for the first time to investors who bought multiple homes before the market imploded, helping some speculators who drove up prices and inflated the housing bubble. Landlords can qualify for up to four federally-subsidized loan workouts starting around May, as long as they rent out each house or have plans to fill them, under the revamped Home Affordable Modification Program, also known as HAMP, [...] Two things of note in today’s Rosie piece. On one hand he breaks out the 10 good and bad things that investors are factoring, and while focusing on the positive, and completely ignoring the negative, are pushing the market to its best start since 1997. As Rosie says: “The equity market has gotten off to its best start in a good 15 years and being led by the deep cyclicals [...] For the most part, people’s predictions about the future tend to be strongly rooted in the short-term past. It’s just an easy, human way of thinking about things, we suppose. That being said, from a market perspective, 2012 is NOT shaping up like 2011 at all. Bespoke has a big table of ETFs that it tracks that are the most above their 50-day moving average, which is a useful way of looking [...] From Zero Hedge: Almost six months ago, we discussed the dramatic shifts that were about to occur (and indeed did occur) the last time the New York Fed tried to unwind the toxic AIG sludge that is more prosaically known as Maiden Lane II. At the time, the failure of a previous auction as dealers were unwilling to take up even modest sizes of the morose mortgage portfolio was the green light [...] From Economic Policy Journal: … From CNBC: Not since the spring of 2008 have the nation’s homebuilders felt this good about the potential for new business. An industry association survey measuring builder sentiment rose for the third straight month in December, with significant gains in the component measuring traffic of perspective buyers… “This is the first time that builder confidence has improved for… Read full article… By Steve Goldstein WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) – Confidence in the market for newly built single-family homes dipped slightly in September to remain in very low territory, according to an index released Monday. The National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index fell by a point to 14, on a seasonally adjusted index where readings above 50 are considered good. The index, which correlates closely with single-family housing starts, has held between [...] WASHINGTON (AP) – The Labor Department is investigating large U.S. homebuilders to see if they failed to pay workers the minimum wage or overtime. A spokesman says the agency is investigating compliance with wage and hour laws in the homebuilding industry as part of a crackdown targeting several industries. One of the big homebuilders asked to provide documents in the probe is PulteGroup Inc. A company spokesman [...] A double-dip recession is back on the minds of Web denizens. Google searches for “double dip recession” have shot up in the past two weeks. “In the first two weeks of June the number of Google searches for ‘double dip recession’ by Americans has surged back towards the levels seen when such concerns were rife this time last year,” notes Paul Dales of Capital Economics. [...] In his latest investment letter, Shilling wrote (via Pragmatic Capitalist), “Sell your house, second home or investment single-family houses yesterday, if you plan to do so any time soon (unfavorable) Excess inventories are likely to push prices down another 20%.” It’s one of Shilling’s 11 investment themes, which also include the strength of rental properties in the current market. He also thinks homebuilders will continue to be [...] The Credit Suisse proprietary survey of real estate agents showed a decline in homebuyer traffic for March. Homebuyers are seemingly waiting for more signs of a stabilising market. Importantly, the majority of activity is still concentrated across distressed listings (lower priced existing homes), which are driving the price of newly constructed homes down. Unfortunately, falling prices do not bode well for underlying construction activity, where builder margins [...] by ZH The key highlights, in which we read that yes, the margin squeeze is here. Non-wage input costs increased for manufacturers and retailers in most Districts. Manufacturers, in a number of Districts reported having greater ability to pass through higher input costs to customers. (oh really, good luck) by anonymous During our last major financial crisis, in the 1930′s, FDR pushed government driven solutions including massive spending, implementing economic protectionism, confiscating US Citizens rights to own gold by making gold the property of the treasury, created shovel ready projects to get people to work, raised taxes and added the social security income tax in 1937. In addition, FDR created the pyramid scheme we know as social security and then in [...] They’ve been called McMansions, Starter Castles, Garage Mahals and Faux Chateaus but here’s the latest thing you can call them — History. In the past few years, there have been an increasing number of references made to the “McMansion glut†and the “McMansion backlash,†as more towns pass ordinances against garishly large homes, which are generally over 3,000 square feet and built very close together. What sets a [...] |
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