To add more concreteness and weight to today’s observations about home construction (and renovation), comparable store sales at both Home Depot and Lowes confirm the slowing of real estate construction. It is nice, if not so often, when hard dollar figures imitate to even a small degree what is being shown of adjusted statistical probabilities. Lowes has not yet reported [...]
It seems as if there is a little more complexity taking place in mortgage finance, and therefore the housing “market”, as the simplified idea of rates running the show isn’t holding water. On the surface, the general theme is one that contours to the outline of conventional mortgage interest as it ran through last year’s selloff. It stands to reason [...]
In contrast to existing home sales there has been no real bounce in new home sales. Again, that more than contradicts the idea of a home shortage (or at least a true market shortage, there may be a shortage when only factoring monetary targets) and further explains why builders are reluctant to close the purported supply gap. It makes no [...]
Now that home sales have bounced off the winter lows, we can analyze the real estate market outside of the excuses and distractions. There is no question that May’s sales rate was far better than January or February, but once again that is an amazingly low standard of comparison. In fact, May 2014’s SAAR is pretty much the same as [...]
In advance of another rash of housing statistics, one of the main components driving more optimistic expectations is household formation. After being severely depressed by the Great Recession and then the lack of real recovery, at some point population dynamics should begin to drive actual demand for owning shelter. Of course, it seems like a good part of the construction [...]
In March, Wells Fargo CFO Timothy Sloan previewed the bank’s first quarter earnings. Noting that Wells had originated $524 billion worth of mortgages in 2012, he expected, as the industry did, volumes and profitability to come down a bit in 2013. He also added, “We love the mortgage business.” I don’t think he had the third quarter of 2013 in [...]
The annual Jackson Hole central banker extravaganza is in full swing and ZeroHedge notes a couple of important new factors in the ongoing taper drama. First, an academic “study” on how to withdraw QE without disrupting the real economy. In that study, the authors make the following claim: “The Fed’s purchases of a substantial amount of the new issuance of [...]
John Templeton, one of the greatest investors of all time, said that investors should buy at the point of maximum pessimism. Nothing illustrates the adage of something being easy to say and hard to do more than that statement. It is of course at the point of maximum pessimism that our natural psychological barrier to executing that strategy is greatest. [...]
The stock market continued to defy gravity last week in its ongoing attempt to make me look like a fool for trying to predict its movements. We've recently moved our portfolios to a neutral risk position from the more aggressive stance we adopted during the great sovereign debt scare of last fall and are contemplating an even more conservative posture. [...]
Stay In Touch