ONE-TWENTY TWO: Trading Financial Markets
Exploring the poetry in financial markets for students of money and economy since the year 2000.
PBS Newshour aired a segment on Tuesday’s show called “Mortgage Defaults” as part of its “Making Sense” financial series (click here for video, segment aired 25:45 to 35:00). I highly recommend that anyone interested in real estate watch this segment. Newshour picked three example Floridians who are dealing with defaults on their mortgages: A restaurant … Read more
(repost from January 4, 2010) Yesterday, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke spoke at the annual meeting of the American Economic Association in Atlanta, Georgia. In his speech titled “Monetary Policy and the Housing Bubble,” Bernanke presented statistical (econometric) analyses to demonstrate that monetary policy contributed very little to the recent housing bubble in the U.S. … Read more
For Toll Brothers (TOL), history has a nasty habit of repeating itself. Over the last two quarters, TOL released preliminary earnings reports that propelled the stock to one-day double-digit gains on record trading volumes. For the second time in a row, the actual earnings report generated the exact opposite response. After the last earnings report, … Read more
For the second straight quarter, Toll Brothers (TOL) provided a preliminary quarterly report that ignited the stock as sales volumes once again surpassed expectations. Robert I. Toll, chairman and CEO, explains: “Our fourth-quarter unit deliveries exceeded the high end of our range of guidance due to the delivery of a higher percentage of our backlog, … Read more
The Washington Post issued an alarming article today titled “Housing Agency’s Cash Reserves Will Drop Below Requirement.” In what seems like yet another case of “here we go again,” Federal Housing Authority (FHA) Commissioner David H. Stevens tells us not to worry about his agency’s dwindling reserves even as mortgage delinquencies rise. The Post explains … Read more
My brother and I go back and forth in our discussions about the dynamics of the housing industry. He is good on the fundamentals, and I substitute my weakness on the fundamentals with technical analysis, sentiment analysis, and the information I can glean from earnings calls. Today, he wrote out his latest case for the … Read more
Five months ago, I flagged $45M in combined stock sales by the Toll brothers in their company’s stock. Since then, Toll Brothers (TOL) has been on a roller coaster ride: the stock was first up 15% from the time of my last post, then a two-month and 26% decline, and now a two-month 40% run. … Read more