Isn't alot of the difference due to the fact that small-mid size metros are not in the C-S? If you look at the OFHEO report, these areas, except for CA and FL are still recording small increases. For example, it looked like all the metro areas in upstate NY were up a couple of % since last year. That certainly corresponds with what I see in my area (Albany).
According to the 2nd graph, S&P/Case-Shiller from 1988 to 1991 declined by almost %11, and from 2005 till end of 2007 declined by almost %24, and we are not in the bottom yet.
This is compares current RE crisis with early 90s.
It probably makes the most sense to look at both. Looking at the long-term chart, they more or less run together except at extremes. The Case-Shiller is more important, though, since it covers metropolitan areas exclusively. That's where real estate prices are the greatest, thus wide swings in those areas will have huge repercussions nationally, which is precisely what's occurring.
Alec: NYC is extremely diverse. Prices are still rising (in some case a lot) in Manhattan, though they are falling when you get further away. My point is, all such indices can only approximate reality.
Either way, if you take a 10-year window, it averages out to about 4-5%/year, which is pretty much the long-term average.
Aheadofthecurve writes:
Alec: NYC is extremely diverse. Prices are still rising (in some case a lot) in Manhattan, though they are falling when you get further away. My point is, all such indices can only approximate reality.
This is true. The argument you hear time and again in NYC is that "there's so much foreign money coming in."
And foreign people including students, tourists, workers, shoppers, etc.
The nightlife is still partying full tilt. We're going to Lincoln Center tonight to see sold-out South Pacific and every restaurant within 10 blocks is booked solid.
But hanging over is the shadow of big job cuts on Wall Street and probably state/local govt. There's a "decoupling" question in NYC that mirrors the global issue.
Will foreigners and foreign money still keep it going here?
.
.
As I stated before asking advise on a builder's auction, my daughter is moving to Wenatchee, WA and it has the 3rd greatest appreciation +8.0% of all USA MSAs! See page 2 of the OFHEO report.
Even though it has this builder's acution going on.
14:14 Pimco's Bill Gross appears on CNBC, says the inflation rate should really be adjusted
Gross says that he thinks inflation is really about 1% higher than the actual inflation rate reported, which would mean bonds prices would be adjusted downward about 5%, and yields higher, and stocks about 10% lower. Gross says some adjustments need to be made mentally, since the BLS has used the same calculation for years... says you should be looking to invest in Brazil, Russia, China and India, and investing in its currencies would be a good bet.
forgot preface that last post - I am well aware that he is talking his book, since they are short the long-end of the curve (in pretty good size I believe)
The U.S. Senate on Thursday approved an additional $165 billion to wage war in Iraq and Afghanistan for another year after lawmakers blocked proposed timetables for withdrawing American troops from Iraq.
the war has to be extended for the sake of the economy. while I'd agree that it's NOT an efficient method of boosting the economy, the fact is that wars act as a stimulus.
the iniital inclination is to think that the dollar would rally and oil go down if we pulled out, but not necessarily. it depends on who fills the void. i wouldn't pretend to know and I doubt anybody has a good handle on it - so it's more of the same until it's not.
NYC real estate has always fallen when Wall Street suffers big job losses. It could be different this time with foriegn buyers (though foreign buyers also helped delay declines in the early 90s), but "different-this-time" arguments haven't had a great track record the last couple years.
android 2:15- go look at the CME housing futures market. There are SPCS housing markets going out to Nov 2012. Tradable futures are options are available.
If people want to treat houses as investments rather than places treat them like stocks and do Technical Analysis. I'm not a TA maven by any means, but if I look at trend lines on Chart 1, I see support around 125 somewhere around late 09.
Interesting how C-S and OHFEO were fairly tightly coupled until about 2003. Not to state the blindingly obvious, but this just underlines the extent to which the housing bubble was really a bubble in non-conforming mortgages and creative finance. It also underlines how if bank regulators actually regulated this crisis could have been largely avoided.
"It is becomming increasingly apparent that America is awash in houses, and will not need to build any for the foreseeable future."
Houses, no. Apartments, a big maybe. To the extent in which (and if) economic forces lead populations to concentrate in inner metro areas, higher-density housing may come into demand. While the poor move to the exurbs. More of the European model.
I don't think so, I think a lot of folks are going to be stuck for quite a while in their current housing, unless they are getting the boot from foreclosure.
Nothing is selling, and as for apartments, a lot of folks are moving in with others due to that lack of money problem, futher shrinking demand.
Wait until unemployment kicks up, and then you will see a downward spiral for a lot of folks.
I am well aware that he is talking his book, since they are short the long-end of the curve (in pretty good size I believe)
People like Bill Gross SHOULD talk their book, as well as the reverse: they should put their (investors') money where their mouth is. It would be weird if Gross would talk one way but invest a different way.
C-S has some limitation becuase it looks at select markets.
OFHEO's reporting also has some limitations, in that it only looks at loans below the $417K line, and it has that confidence-inspiring association and policymaking role with the Ozzie and Harriet of finance, America's favorite couple, Freddie and Fannie.
Tune in to the next Freddie and Fannie show, as Fannie raises the limits on her credit cards to compensate for the pay cut Freddie had to take at work. Watch as the sparks fly! Fun for the whole family.
This advertisement was sponsored by Countrywide Mortgage, official sponsor of the 2008 Financial Planning Special Olympics, and Johnson and Johnson, Inc, makers of K-Y Jelly and other fine products for America's savers.
"Home vacancies are at record highs. Apartment vacancies are typical for the last five years, and way above average if you look at the last 20 years."
I agree, especially considering areas where excess single-family housing provides competition.
But as a Bay Area boy, I'm thinking more of apartments in close-in metro core regions like, say, San Francisco/Daly City/Berkeley/Oakland (or a little farther out, along BART (rapid transit) lines). Places where housing is always in short supply and there should be some economic activity even in hard times. Just a thought.
Then again, services in cash-starved municipalities may degrade to the point where the inner cities become war zones.
No, that is for the exurbs. It is full of little burgs designed specifically to cut their inhabitants off from administrative reality (currently, the existence of Those People, but it will as easily provide a cloak of secrecy to Those People's poverty), heavily leverages on anticipated future tax revenues and extremely underdeveloped in terms of infrastructure. The inner city will get all the loans it needs when "nice" people with white names start moving there.
What I think is unanticipated, however, is the fact that these transitions -- to new automaotive technologies, to new modes of housing -- will take place in the midst of the direst of resource crushes.
Regardless of what part of the price is speculation, what part is administrative waste and what part is "true" cost, the reality is that the same people we are now competing with for our fuel will be building their own modern infrastructure at the same time we are attempting to abandon commuter / suburban society, and the bidding-up effect is potentially fantastic, as all the uses are compelling. I think we are going to see a lot of projects undertaken, not in the core cities but on their edges, out in the sprawl, and in terms of linking infrastructure, that are going to be stillborn or abandoned due to upwards-spiralling material costs.
Good to see the cenurb exurb "discussions" don't need my help.
Both will suffer just in different ways. I can't wait for the mega apartment high rise clothesline committee to get into a tussle when they propose to obscure the solar panels. Just how many square feet of rooftop pv does the typical family need? 1000-2500 or in easier terms; suburban densities.
We aren't going to be able to run transit on renewable energy.
Who was it that last summer or fall that predicted that if house prices fell by 10% overall we would have a recession, and that if they fell by 20% we would basically have financial armageddon?
Speaking to Byzantine's assessment of the future, National Geographic's May issue is devoted entirely to an examination of China. As distinct from the former light prose of the Grosvenor years, this issue has got some meat on its bones.
I came away with the sense that agriculture, natural resource, environmental and development crises will define China's near future. They have experienced the American Century and all its attendant excesses in a relatively short time frame, and are still of the faster and louder is better school.
if house prices fell by 10% overall we would have a recession, and that if they fell by 20% we would basically have financial armageddon...
If home price losses of 10% were realized... is more like it. I for one don't feel several hundred grand poorer for all the theoretical decline that has followed so much theoretical appreciation.
An observation from Boston; for some reason there were relatively few "For Sale" signs in my area in March and April.
Now they are starting to sprout like weeds. Why people held off, I can't imagine but something seems to have happened to trigger a change and, if it's replicated in other locals, it could signal the beginning of a big shift (downward) in the denial phase of the market.
So, while Greenspan was running around on national TV saying "Hoocudanoode?" he was letting Gross in on the whole scam so he could profit from.
This is criminal. Its gonna take torches and pitchforks to solve this kind of corrupt, insider trading. Anything short of the French revolution means the problem isn't fixed.
The number of corporate defaults worldwide this year exceeds the tally for all of 2007, according to Standard & Poor's. Borrowers have defaulted 28 times on $18.9 billion of debt, compared with 22 last year and 30 in all of 2006, New York-based S&P said today in a report. U.S. companies were responsible for all but one of the defaults this year.
I came away with the sense that agriculture, natural resource, environmental and development crises will define China's near future. They have experienced the American Century and all its attendant excesses in a relatively short time frame, and are still of the faster and louder is better school.
Oh very much. India as well. I love that Americans think that they will save the world because they have finally discovered sutainability.
Wake up, folks, it's not the diminishing supplies. It's the geometrically expanding demand. Everyone in the world is not going to pass on material plenty just because some guy white guy in a polo shirt says he's had material plenty all his life and he thinks it might be a bad idea is everyone followed in his footsteps, had a car like him, lived his life of opulence, etc.
People should get ready for some very hungry piggies to try to find their way to the trough, and not just a few.
Gross and many of his fellow banksters genuinely appear to believe they are in life on a pass. They are utterly clueless when it comes to understanding how assertions like this make come back to haunt them. By way of contrast, consider the oil industry which, through painful experience, has learned to stick to the script vetted by legal counsel and well-paid government relations consultants. Can you imagine anyone from Big Oil ever boasting about the billions they've made thanks to OPEC?
I'm getting set up to start some shorts...newbie, so will start small.
Went to the local mall this AM and the only folks that I saw there were walkers. Specifically, I'm looking at shorting GGP. Owner of large regional malls and they do have a nice product. Owned them on the way up some years ago and moved on to other things.
With gas and other economic data, I think that malls are toast for awhile.
emma anne, seriously, don't you get a little spooked any time hank is either lying or acting clueless his stutter kicks in? I am getting weary of the dollar strength and bottom calling lies.
The analysts hate it. My best trades are doing the opposite of the analysts, so personally I won't go there. It looks like there was quite a short squeeze in March.
I sat at the table with the Bloomberg writer at the Asia Society event in which Gross made his comment. His cohort, Mohamed El-Erian, participated in a forum where several industry CEO/Chairmen types concurred in the observation Byzantine Ruins made above. To wit - the young Sichuan woman who as a child ate chicken twice per year. Now, she's sick of chicken. And - India and China have EACH contributed 300 million jobs in the same time frame that the US created 25 million jobs - and in the time it takes the US to create another 25 million, each will contribute a like 300 million figure.
Of course, one participant claimed that Main Street has been "relatively unscathed" in comparison to Wall Street by recent market dislocations. Another CEO riposted, had to buy food or fuel lately?
US demand for resources is a role model for the rest of the world. And now they want to play - and eat - too.
If you read page 11 of the recent OFHEO release you will see exactly where the differences are. When OFHEO removes the appraisal data (inflated no doubt) and uses the purchase only index, in conjunction with adding lower priced housing IN the 10 original CS metro markets then the difference is only .3% !!
Greenspan's contribution is his access to the inside game that is being played on we flunkies. Wall street, business, and a select group of insiders enjoy a seat at the table and are included, if not directing, the "official" economic policy.
Given the price related housing collapse illustrated by CR's thread, does anyone think BB or Congress have any kind of austerity package in mind ? Anyone betting that the Fed, under anyone but Volker, will make a move to slow growth in the name of clearing the zombies from the financial landscape is likely to lose his/her blouse.
The silver lining for the US is that the rest of the world has been feeding on the carcass and, like it or not, is dependent on the American consumer. China is allready feeling the pain and has been lately insisting on made in China for all government purchases. Since the gov owns everything this means everything.
First.
This party is just getting started
Isn't alot of the difference due to the fact that small-mid size metros are not in the C-S? If you look at the OFHEO report, these areas, except for CA and FL are still recording small increases. For example, it looked like all the metro areas in upstate NY were up a couple of % since last year. That certainly corresponds with what I see in my area (Albany).
According to the 2nd graph, S&P/Case-Shiller from 1988 to 1991 declined by almost %11, and from 2005 till end of 2007 declined by almost %24, and we are not in the bottom yet.
This is compares current RE crisis with early 90s.
CR/Tanta
Looks like your blog has achieved enough fame that it's time to kill off useless comments.
roller coaster...yeah... do do doo dod doo do
It probably makes the most sense to look at both. Looking at the long-term chart, they more or less run together except at extremes. The Case-Shiller is more important, though, since it covers metropolitan areas exclusively. That's where real estate prices are the greatest, thus wide swings in those areas will have huge repercussions nationally, which is precisely what's occurring.
Can someone make a projection to 2009? Assume things are getting better from 2008.
AOTC, nobody cares about Albany because you can take 10 Albany MSAs and drop them in the NYC MSA and still not be even.
Albany is only the 4th largest MSA in NY state.
My prediction? PAINNNNNNNNNN.....
Alec: NYC is extremely diverse. Prices are still rising (in some case a lot) in Manhattan, though they are falling when you get further away. My point is, all such indices can only approximate reality.
Either way, if you take a 10-year window, it averages out to about 4-5%/year, which is pretty much the long-term average.
It's no longer North East,
It's no longer New York City,
It's now only Manhattan.
By the way, Manhattan sales dropped 34% YOY.
This is true. The argument you hear time and again in NYC is that "there's so much foreign money coming in."
And foreign people including students, tourists, workers, shoppers, etc.
The nightlife is still partying full tilt. We're going to Lincoln Center tonight to see sold-out South Pacific and every restaurant within 10 blocks is booked solid.
But hanging over is the shadow of big job cuts on Wall Street and probably state/local govt. There's a "decoupling" question in NYC that mirrors the global issue.
Will foreigners and foreign money still keep it going here?
.
.
As I stated before asking advise on a builder's auction, my daughter is moving to Wenatchee, WA and it has the 3rd greatest appreciation +8.0% of all USA MSAs! See page 2 of the OFHEO report.
Even though it has this builder's acution going on.
Northwest Auctions - Builder Liquidation
Suggestions on what these house will go for and any comments on builders costs $/SqFt would be appreciated.
Financing not an issue, can bid "all cash" if necessary.
SeattleSun
.
.
14:14 Pimco's Bill Gross appears on CNBC, says the inflation rate should really be adjusted
Gross says that he thinks inflation is really about 1% higher than the actual inflation rate reported, which would mean bonds prices would be adjusted downward about 5%, and yields higher, and stocks about 10% lower. Gross says some adjustments need to be made mentally, since the BLS has used the same calculation for years... says you should be looking to invest in Brazil, Russia, China and India, and investing in its currencies would be a good bet.
forgot preface that last post - I am well aware that he is talking his book, since they are short the long-end of the curve (in pretty good size I believe)
The U.S. Senate on Thursday approved an additional $165 billion to wage war in Iraq and Afghanistan for another year after lawmakers blocked proposed timetables for withdrawing American troops from Iraq.
UPDATE 2-U.S. Senate approves $165 billion in new war money
| Reuters
Short Bucky. Government spending is the source of all inflation.
Will the next bozo who wants to say C-S only counts 20 cities please refrain from doing so, and go read what the index actually includes first?
the war has to be extended for the sake of the economy. while I'd agree that it's NOT an efficient method of boosting the economy, the fact is that wars act as a stimulus.
the iniital inclination is to think that the dollar would rally and oil go down if we pulled out, but not necessarily. it depends on who fills the void. i wouldn't pretend to know and I doubt anybody has a good handle on it - so it's more of the same until it's not.
NYC real estate has always fallen when Wall Street suffers big job losses. It could be different this time with foriegn buyers (though foreign buyers also helped delay declines in the early 90s), but "different-this-time" arguments haven't had a great track record the last couple years.
Seattle S-I gave you a workable number, I still wouldn't buy now.
Just take a look at the angle of that cliff, and contemplate your investment looking like that in a couple of years.
It is becomming increasingly apparent that America is awash in houses, and will not need to build any for the foreseeable future.
Absorbing that excess will take years- like to 2012 and beyond in some areas.
So if you really think it is a good idea to buy- go right ahead- after all your mind seems to be made up.
Someday this war's gonna end...
This article on NYC real estate and recessions from New York Magazine presented a good summary of pro/con factors: The Eerie Familiarity of New York’s 1989 Recession Today -- New York Magazine
NYC will ultimately tank hard. It's a finance town and this was always a finance bubble.
android 2:15- go look at the CME housing futures market. There are SPCS housing markets going out to Nov 2012. Tradable futures are options are available.
I was in NYC this weekend marveling at all the condo towers under construction. Lots of supply on the way.
If people want to treat houses as investments rather than places treat them like stocks and do Technical Analysis. I'm not a TA maven by any means, but if I look at trend lines on Chart 1, I see support around 125 somewhere around late 09.
rich-Enjoy the play.
Interesting how C-S and OHFEO were fairly tightly coupled until about 2003. Not to state the blindingly obvious, but this just underlines the extent to which the housing bubble was really a bubble in non-conforming mortgages and creative finance. It also underlines how if bank regulators actually regulated this crisis could have been largely avoided.
"congresswoman loses home to bank" can u even believe this? the details are getting worse. and she had a vote on the bailout plan???
Long Beach Congresswoman skips mortgage payments - Mortgage Insider : The Orange County Register
i wonder if she has any equity in her long beach residence. i wonder how much cc debt she's got...
12th, new condo inventory is also exploding in Brooklyn. The substitute product will kill Manhattan.
"It is becomming increasingly apparent that America is awash in houses, and will not need to build any for the foreseeable future."
Houses, no. Apartments, a big maybe. To the extent in which (and if) economic forces lead populations to concentrate in inner metro areas, higher-density housing may come into demand. While the poor move to the exurbs. More of the European model.
I don't think so, I think a lot of folks are going to be stuck for quite a while in their current housing, unless they are getting the boot from foreclosure.
Nothing is selling, and as for apartments, a lot of folks are moving in with others due to that lack of money problem, futher shrinking demand.
Wait until unemployment kicks up, and then you will see a downward spiral for a lot of folks.
Someday this war's gonna end...
I am well aware that he is talking his book, since they are short the long-end of the curve (in pretty good size I believe)
People like Bill Gross SHOULD talk their book, as well as the reverse: they should put their (investors') money where their mouth is. It would be weird if Gross would talk one way but invest a different way.
economic forces lead populations to concentrate in inner metro areas
Then again, services in cash-starved municipalities may degrade to the point where the inner cities become war zones.
-Bob Dobbs
Check out the post from CR on apartment rental rates.
homeownership-and-vacancy-rates
Home vacancies are at record highs. Apartment vacancies are typical for the last five years, and way above average if you look at the last 20 years.
There appears to be significant oversupply of all housing.
C-S has some limitation becuase it looks at select markets.
OFHEO's reporting also has some limitations, in that it only looks at loans below the $417K line, and it has that confidence-inspiring association and policymaking role with the Ozzie and Harriet of finance, America's favorite couple, Freddie and Fannie.
Tune in to the next Freddie and Fannie show, as Fannie raises the limits on her credit cards to compensate for the pay cut Freddie had to take at work. Watch as the sparks fly! Fun for the whole family.
This advertisement was sponsored by Countrywide Mortgage, official sponsor of the 2008 Financial Planning Special Olympics, and Johnson and Johnson, Inc, makers of K-Y Jelly and other fine products for America's savers.
"Home vacancies are at record highs. Apartment vacancies are typical for the last five years, and way above average if you look at the last 20 years."
I agree, especially considering areas where excess single-family housing provides competition.
But as a Bay Area boy, I'm thinking more of apartments in close-in metro core regions like, say, San Francisco/Daly City/Berkeley/Oakland (or a little farther out, along BART (rapid transit) lines). Places where housing is always in short supply and there should be some economic activity even in hard times. Just a thought.
I am looking for suggestions which REIT to short. Tnx.
Then again, services in cash-starved municipalities may degrade to the point where the inner cities become war zones.
No, that is for the exurbs. It is full of little burgs designed specifically to cut their inhabitants off from administrative reality (currently, the existence of Those People, but it will as easily provide a cloak of secrecy to Those People's poverty), heavily leverages on anticipated future tax revenues and extremely underdeveloped in terms of infrastructure. The inner city will get all the loans it needs when "nice" people with white names start moving there.
What I think is unanticipated, however, is the fact that these transitions -- to new automaotive technologies, to new modes of housing -- will take place in the midst of the direst of resource crushes.
Regardless of what part of the price is speculation, what part is administrative waste and what part is "true" cost, the reality is that the same people we are now competing with for our fuel will be building their own modern infrastructure at the same time we are attempting to abandon commuter / suburban society, and the bidding-up effect is potentially fantastic, as all the uses are compelling. I think we are going to see a lot of projects undertaken, not in the core cities but on their edges, out in the sprawl, and in terms of linking infrastructure, that are going to be stillborn or abandoned due to upwards-spiralling material costs.
"Why It's a Bad Time to Buy a House: High 'Real' Mortgage Rates, Record Inventories"
Link
A frank discussion of housing market on tech ticker.
An analyst from Schwab comes up with lines like:
"Because home prices are depreciating, the "real" mortgage rate for homebuyers is about 15%"
OT: Sarah Lacy of tech ticker is hot.
Good to see the cenurb exurb "discussions" don't need my help.
Both will suffer just in different ways. I can't wait for the mega apartment high rise clothesline committee to get into a tussle when they propose to obscure the solar panels. Just how many square feet of rooftop pv does the typical family need? 1000-2500 or in easier terms; suburban densities.
We aren't going to be able to run transit on renewable energy.
Who was it that last summer or fall that predicted that if house prices fell by 10% overall we would have a recession, and that if they fell by 20% we would basically have financial armageddon?
Speaking to Byzantine's assessment of the future, National Geographic's May issue is devoted entirely to an examination of China. As distinct from the former light prose of the Grosvenor years, this issue has got some meat on its bones.
I came away with the sense that agriculture, natural resource, environmental and development crises will define China's near future. They have experienced the American Century and all its attendant excesses in a relatively short time frame, and are still of the faster and louder is better school.
A decent read.
if house prices fell by 10% overall we would have a recession, and that if they fell by 20% we would basically have financial armageddon...
If home price losses of 10% were realized... is more like it. I for one don't feel several hundred grand poorer for all the theoretical decline that has followed so much theoretical appreciation.
An observation from Boston; for some reason there were relatively few "For Sale" signs in my area in March and April.
Now they are starting to sprout like weeds. Why people held off, I can't imagine but something seems to have happened to trigger a change and, if it's replicated in other locals, it could signal the beginning of a big shift (downward) in the denial phase of the market.
Who am I?
III-...I I I ff ff fffa aa a fav ffffaaavvvor a aaa aa a ssst ssssttttt stttrong dollar.
A: It's p. pp pppporrrrrky p pppp pppig the US Treasury Secretary
Anyone else here the most interesting comment of the day out of Bill Gross? Here's the headline from Bloomberg:
Greenspan Helped Pimco Make Billions, Gross Says
Greenspan Helped Pimco Make Billions, Gross Says (Update3) - Bloomberg.com
So, while Greenspan was running around on national TV saying "Hoocudanoode?" he was letting Gross in on the whole scam so he could profit from.
This is criminal. Its gonna take torches and pitchforks to solve this kind of corrupt, insider trading. Anything short of the French revolution means the problem isn't fixed.
Irrelevant and OT -- please ignore:
The number of corporate defaults worldwide this year exceeds the tally for all of 2007, according to Standard & Poor's. Borrowers have defaulted 28 times on $18.9 billion of debt, compared with 22 last year and 30 in all of 2006, New York-based S&P said today in a report. U.S. companies were responsible for all but one of the defaults this year.
Corporate Defaults Reach 28, Exceeding Total for All of 2007 - Bloomberg.com
I came away with the sense that agriculture, natural resource, environmental and development crises will define China's near future. They have experienced the American Century and all its attendant excesses in a relatively short time frame, and are still of the faster and louder is better school.
Oh very much. India as well. I love that Americans think that they will save the world because they have finally discovered sutainability.
Wake up, folks, it's not the diminishing supplies. It's the geometrically expanding demand. Everyone in the world is not going to pass on material plenty just because some guy white guy in a polo shirt says he's had material plenty all his life and he thinks it might be a bad idea is everyone followed in his footsteps, had a car like him, lived his life of opulence, etc.
People should get ready for some very hungry piggies to try to find their way to the trough, and not just a few.
Greenspan Helped Pimco Make Billions, Gross Says
Gross and many of his fellow banksters genuinely appear to believe they are in life on a pass. They are utterly clueless when it comes to understanding how assertions like this make come back to haunt them. By way of contrast, consider the oil industry which, through painful experience, has learned to stick to the script vetted by legal counsel and well-paid government relations consultants. Can you imagine anyone from Big Oil ever boasting about the billions they've made thanks to OPEC?
Yal @ 3:46 -
Which Reit to short?
I'm getting set up to start some shorts...newbie, so will start small.
Went to the local mall this AM and the only folks that I saw there were walkers. Specifically, I'm looking at shorting GGP. Owner of large regional malls and they do have a nice product. Owned them on the way up some years ago and moved on to other things.
With gas and other economic data, I think that malls are toast for awhile.
"Who am I?
III-...I I I ff ff fffa aa a fav ffffaaavvvor a aaa aa a ssst ssssttttt stttrong dollar."
Nothing wrong with making fun of the guy's failings, but he can't help his stutter, you know.
yeah, he only stutters when he's nervous (or lying?)
-hey new thread--
emma anne, seriously, don't you get a little spooked any time hank is either lying or acting clueless his stutter kicks in? I am getting weary of the dollar strength and bottom calling lies.
The analysts hate it. My best trades are doing the opposite of the analysts, so personally I won't go there. It looks like there was quite a short squeeze in March.
homedad-I was referring to GGP
I sat at the table with the Bloomberg writer at the Asia Society event in which Gross made his comment. His cohort, Mohamed El-Erian, participated in a forum where several industry CEO/Chairmen types concurred in the observation Byzantine Ruins made above. To wit - the young Sichuan woman who as a child ate chicken twice per year. Now, she's sick of chicken. And - India and China have EACH contributed 300 million jobs in the same time frame that the US created 25 million jobs - and in the time it takes the US to create another 25 million, each will contribute a like 300 million figure.
Of course, one participant claimed that Main Street has been "relatively unscathed" in comparison to Wall Street by recent market dislocations. Another CEO riposted, had to buy food or fuel lately?
US demand for resources is a role model for the rest of the world. And now they want to play - and eat - too.
If you read page 11 of the recent OFHEO release you will see exactly where the differences are. When OFHEO removes the appraisal data (inflated no doubt) and uses the purchase only index, in conjunction with adding lower priced housing IN the 10 original CS metro markets then the difference is only .3% !!
Greenspan's contribution is his access to the inside game that is being played on we flunkies. Wall street, business, and a select group of insiders enjoy a seat at the table and are included, if not directing, the "official" economic policy.
Given the price related housing collapse illustrated by CR's thread, does anyone think BB or Congress have any kind of austerity package in mind ? Anyone betting that the Fed, under anyone but Volker, will make a move to slow growth in the name of clearing the zombies from the financial landscape is likely to lose his/her blouse.
The silver lining for the US is that the rest of the world has been feeding on the carcass and, like it or not, is dependent on the American consumer. China is allready feeling the pain and has been lately insisting on made in China for all government purchases. Since the gov owns everything this means everything.