The NAHB Finally Declares That the Housing Market Is Slowing

The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) was just about as bearish on the housing market as it allows itself to get. In its latest press release on the NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI), the NAHB declared “…the housing market is now slowing.” The HMI plunged from 77 to 69 in a sign that … Read more

D.R. Horton Leads the Home Builder ETF Down to An Important Test

The seasonal trade in home builders continues to unfold more like a typical year. The iShares U.S. Home Construction ETF (ITB) peaked in May on an absolute basis and relative to the S&P 500 (SPY). Since that peak, ITB is down 12.2% while the S&P 500 is UP 3.9%. This gap is so wide that … Read more

Increasing Australian Housing Prices Promise to Pressure Monetary Policy

(This is an excerpt from an article I originally published on Seeking Alpha on November 4, 2013. Click here to read the entire piece.) The Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) latest report on housing prices in Australia’s eight capital cities demonstrates a market that remains hot, especially in Sydney. These increasing prices are no surprise … Read more

More Positive Milestones for the Residential Housing Market

(This is an excerpt from an article I originally published on Seeking Alpha on August 30, 2012. Click here to read the entire piece.) The residential housing industry received more positive data on August 29, 2012. First, the latest Federal Reserve’s beige book further confirmed the stronger price trends shown in the Federal Housing Finance … Read more

Latest Housing Price Data Confirm Housing Bottom Underway

(This is an excerpt from an article I originally published on Seeking Alpha on August 26, 2012. Click here to read the entire piece.) The last earnings reports from homebuilders like Toll Brothers (TOL) and KB Home (KBH) have delivered very positive outlooks on the current housing market: see “A Swell Of Pent Up Demand … Read more

Silicon Valley Remains A Bulwark Against the Housing Depression

“IPOs Boost Demand for Silicon Valley Mansions” – Bloomberg “US Housing Crisis Is Now Worse Than Great Depression” – CNBC These two headlines from Tuesday’s financial press describe well the dichotomy in America’s two-speed economy. Corporate profits have never been better but employment has rarely been worse. The housing market in Silicon Valley is benefiting … Read more

Still Expecting Housing to Bounce Along the Bottom Until 2013

For the past few months, I pestered my youngest brother to write a review of his cogent 2009 analysis of the housing market. In that post, he predicted housing would bottom in April, 2010 and as late as 2013 in a worst case scenario. He has finally produced the follow-up, and I post it below. … Read more

Making A Case for A Housing Bottom…As Late As 2013

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