Tuesday, September 25, 2007

PPT Don't Scoff Too Soon


Gee, Case-Shiller comes out with the biggest y-o-y drop on record and predictably the HBs crater right? Well then what's up with the "technical" retracement to fill the gap? What happened since market opening and 11 AM Eastern that is causing people to pay more for some of these POS than they were willing to pay yesterday? I'm not a chartist and I don't believe in the plunge protection team but that doesn't mean I have no sense of smell. Something stinks here and it is an "upper decker" in a Hovnanian "Deal of The Century" model home.

16 comments:

Sweet Cashback said...

First and Murst....

Go Wall Street Go !

Peripheral Visionary said...

If there is manipulation of the markets, it's likely from Wall Street. The big investment banks desperately need to stem the flow of redemption requests from hedge funds and mutual funds, and I suspect they're working overtime, even putting their own money up, to help the markets regain their recent highs.

If Wall Street can regain Dow 14,000, they may be able to restart the rally, especially as so many analysts are bullish right now (a big change from even two weeks ago.) On the other hand, if they fail to break Dow 14,000, that will form massive overhead resistance, and may form either a double top or a head-and-shoulders, both of which are very bearish from a technical perspective.

So for now, it's Bad News Ignore Mode™ while Wall Street tries to jump-start the bull market engine.

Unknown said...

DNT the upper decker.

Truly a weapon of last resort.

serinitis said...

I suspect the Feds are actively supporting Wall Street in its efforts to stop a plunge. Their actions have been toward keeping Wall Street happy and it is fairly easy for them to give some big banks very good credit terms to go out and shore up weak points.

Funny Circus Bears said...

It's not that complicated.

Rob Dawg said...

It's a game of "chicken" at this point. They all know somebody is going to pull a trigger and they all know they need to get out of the quarter first but they are afraid some of the other guys are going to jump the gun and leave a little money on the table rather than get caught in the stampede.

H Simpson said...

I am a true believer in the

"I got rich by getting out before the peak" quote.

Going make up for Ben's finagling on my cash position plus some before the end of the year.

H.

Sweet Cashback said...

IMHO all this comes down to the question of: Why does poop float?

Answer:
- High fat content (America has plenty of that stuff, sometimes also called debt)
- High gas content, which equates to important amounts of hot air (plenty of that in the latest corporate announcements)

With this important science discovery I leave you to get an XBox360 and Halo3......

Peripheral Visionary said...

It's downright eerie how much the markets kept to the unchanged line today. Definitely smells of market manipulation; but it's very hard to say who, why, how, etc.

And Halo3 is the "meh" for me. It's been nothing but Civ4 for me for the last several months. Action-oriented games just don't hold my interest like they used to, although that could change when Warhammer Online comes out.

Anonymous said...

Case-Shiller is fine by its own, but when its unfairly compared to other numbers, it makes things look bad for the NAR.

Homebuilders are just beginning to feel the pain in Utah. I got some information today suggesting there will be more deals to come on new homes. Question is, how low is low enough?

Sac RE Agent said...

Hey Kely, if you wish to run an ad, atleast make sure the english version works.


SLC, how low would it take for you to buy a new home in the SLC area?

ha38349 said...

It is expectations!
If a lot of people were expecting the number to be worse then they turned out to be there will be short term buying.
Long term the trend doesn't look good but then there are folks who don't care about more than the next few days.

Anonymous said...

SLC, how low would it take for you to buy a new home in the SLC area?

To live in? Now? 20% off.

To resell in a short time < 1 year? - 30% plus

Will I find that deal? Unlikely now, but who knows what the future will bring.

sjrullijr said...

Toll Brothers is laying off in the washington DC area. Not even the federally funded big cats have money for the 650,000 town homes.

The_Scum said...

Question is, how low is low enough?

Question posted by Nigel Pleather™

Easy answer for me here in Vegas..$75-100 per square foot on a larger than postage stamp lot within 5 miles of work and hopefully with a fireplace (woodburning so that means an older home) and maybe a pool to raise koi and/or algae in. There are several neighborhoods that meet this criteria I'm watching.

The builders are already down to $150/sq ft without counting incentives but their shitboxes don't meet my criteria.

So, I'm continuing to save increasingly worthless dollars (fuck you Bernanke)and building to have a minimum %20 down payment ($250k or a little less is my target price for a home) while sending my oldest spawn to pharmacy school. I should still have plenty of money to play with stocks and send youngest spawn to whatever school she chooses in a few years as well.

Looks like another year renting before the market comes to me. Renting at 1/2 the cost or less of owning ain't so bad for me. My cats don't seem to care whether I rent or own at this point.

Having over 14% YTD after tax return on my savings sort of tempers me from making a stupid housing purchase decision at this point. After all, that potential down payment is currently making enough annually to pay my rent.

TK said...

This just in from the mouth of Jim Cramer:

"Yes the housing market is in freefall in a lot of areas, confidence is shaken and people are expecting fire sales to be drawn back in. But the fed is on the case. They will keep cutting rates and by this time next year, this will all be over. One more year and we're gonna be in great shape!

How does anyone buy this guy's bullshit?