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Category Archives: Housing

Short Economic Stories Feb 17 2012

In the US: •For years I have commented that S&P500 profit margin is one of the best mean reverting series of economic data there is. The final stock market peaks of 2000 & 2007 coincided with turning points when profit margins began retreating from their peaks. •Notice -like all mean reverting series- the larger the area above the average (green area), the larger the […] Read the rest of this entry »

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Short Economic Stories Feb 4 2012

US-only this week….. 4Q 2011 Earnings season is roughly 58% done — as of Thursday’s most recent data from S&P. •57% of earnings results beat, 32% missed, 11% met lowered earnings expectations. Again, this is below the 65% average beat rate for sandbagged results. Why do I refer to earnings estimates as sandbagged ? Because there’s a pattern of earnings estimates being lowered as […] Read the rest of this entry »

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Short Economic Stories Jan 21 2012

Big Picture: Warning: The mini greedometer (tactical risk indicator) is displaying readings previously only seen when the S&P500 was within 5% of a secular (long term) top. The greedometer (strategic risk indicator) is approaching dangerous risk levels as well. There is very little upside and a great deal of downside to risk assets (stocks, junk bonds, commodities, REITs) at this time. A much more […] Read the rest of this entry »

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Year End Letter 2011 (& 2012 Forecast)

Strategic Indicator:  Greedometer Last week, the greedometer registered 5400 rpm, a respectable but not unexpected jump from the previous week 4800rpm. And with that, we have the end of the year-end rise in the greedometer.  The 2011 set of greedometer readings resemble that of 2007. Indeed, both years saw the last or second to last week finish with a 5400rpm reading. Uncanny.  And foreboding.   (the […] Read the rest of this entry »

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Short Economic Stories: US

As of now, Congress has failed to approve an extension on the payroll tax cut and jobless benefit extension. Brinkmanship and polarized politics aside, most expected Congress to cook-up something before they head home for the holiday break.  The impact of not extending the fiscal candy is likely to be a 2%(ish) drag on an economy that is already only likely to see flat […] Read the rest of this entry »

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Weekly Short Economic Stories

ECRI ‘s WLI indicator dropped to -10.1  two  weeks ago, and -10.0 last week. The WLI fell this low in February 2008 — 3 months into the Great Recession.  The odds are building that January 2012 will be the first month the US falls back into recession (but it could be December 2011).  Granted, a year ago I forecast 4Q 2011 would see a […] Read the rest of this entry »

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Weekly Short Economic Stories

Last week: the US stock market was plumbing 2011 lows and flirting with a bear market entry point (20% loss) — where most of the rest of the world’s stock markets already are (we were re-testing our peak for the year — in the +4-5% range).  By the way, the same level in the S&P500 was seen: December 2009, September 2008, September 2004, September […] Read the rest of this entry »

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Weekly Short Economic Stories

More fingers in the dike…… everywhere.  To counteract the damage inflicted by reality — a stream of worsening economic data here, Europe, everywhere — we see: The Fed, Bank of England, Swiss National Bank, Bank of Japan have “once more dear friends, stepped into the breach..” by making 3-month loans to the ECB (via currency swaps).   Think about that.    European banks don’t trust […] Read the rest of this entry »

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Weekly Short Economic Stories

Yesterday saw the August consumer confidence report from The Conference Board.  Ouch!  It dropped to the lowest level since April 2009. Unless there’s a massive disconnect, we’re likely to see a very weak ISM (US manufacturing) report on Thursday, and an equally bad August employment report on Friday.  All else being equal, this will put downward pressure on stocks, and upward pressure on high […] Read the rest of this entry »

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Case Shiller Housing Report

Published on July 2, 2011 by admin in Housing

On Tuesday morning, the Case-Shiller data on US housing was released.   Here’s what CNBC’s website showed: At the same time, Reuters looked like this: Which is it ?   We’ll examine the data in more detail in a minute. The fact that one organization (CNBC) skimmed the data to pull out any positive morsels while Reuters painted a slightly negative view speaks to the […] Read the rest of this entry »

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