Using the Fed’s Report On Economic Well-Being To Gauge Prospects for the Housing Market

(This is an excerpt from an article I originally published on Seeking Alpha on June 2, 2015. Click here to read the entire piece.) On May 27th, the Federal Reserve Board published the second annual results of its Survey of Household Economics and Decisionmaking (SHED). {snip} Based on the Fed’s survey results, I concluded that … Read more

T2108 Update (April 17, 2015) – Another Close Call With Overbought Amid More Chop

(T2108 measures the percentage of stocks trading above their respective 40-day moving averages [DMAs]. It helps to identify extremes in market sentiment that are likely to reverse. To learn more about it, see my T2108 Resource Page. You can follow real-time T2108 commentary on twitter using the #T2108 hashtag. T2108-related trades and other trades are … Read more

The Bad and the Good News In the Housing Market’s Worsening Labor Shortage

(This is an excerpt from an article I originally published on Seeking Alpha on November 10, 2014. Click here to read the entire piece.) The bursting of the housing bubble destroyed the supply chain at several critical junctures. For example, employment in the industry collapsed. While the overall unemployment rate in the industry has returned … Read more

A Potentially Important Shift In Income Demographics for Home Loans

(This is an excerpt from an article I originally published on Seeking Alpha on September 29, 2014. Click here to read the entire piece.) I have written before that home builders have focused on building for higher income buyers and mortgage financing has been restricted to the well-off. It turns out things are not quite … Read more

Insurance Policies for Financial Stability: the UK Tightens Housing Policies and Further Tunes Its Warnings

(This is an excerpt from an article I originally published on Seeking Alpha on July 21, 2014. Click here to read the entire piece.) “Historically low levels of interest rates globally and the current backdrop of low volatility across financial markets may encourage market participants to underestimate the likelihood and severity of tail risks. There … Read more