Most Popular
1. Banking Crisis is Stocks Bull Market Buying Opportunity - Nadeem_Walayat
2.The Crypto Signal for the Precious Metals Market - P_Radomski_CFA
3. One Possible Outcome to a New World Order - Raymond_Matison
4.Nvidia Blow Off Top - Flying High like the Phoenix too Close to the Sun - Nadeem_Walayat
5. Apple AAPL Stock Trend and Earnings Analysis - Nadeem_Walayat
6.AI, Stocks, and Gold Stocks – Connected After All - P_Radomski_CFA
7.Stock Market CHEAT SHEET - - Nadeem_Walayat
8.US Debt Ceiling Crisis Smoke and Mirrors Circus - Nadeem_Walayat
9.Silver Price May Explode - Avi_Gilburt
10.More US Banks Could Collapse -- A Lot More- EWI
Last 7 days
Stock Market Volatility (VIX) - 25th Mar 24
Stock Market Investor Sentiment - 25th Mar 24
The Federal Reserve Didn't Do Anything But It Had Plenty to Say - 25th Mar 24
Stock Market Breadth - 24th Mar 24
Stock Market Margin Debt Indicator - 24th Mar 24
It’s Easy to Scream Stocks Bubble! - 24th Mar 24
Stocks: What to Make of All This Insider Selling- 24th Mar 24
Money Supply Continues To Fall, Economy Worsens – Investors Don’t Care - 24th Mar 24
Get an Edge in the Crypto Market with Order Flow - 24th Mar 24
US Presidential Election Cycle and Recessions - 18th Mar 24
US Recession Already Happened in 2022! - 18th Mar 24
AI can now remember everything you say - 18th Mar 24
Bitcoin Crypto Mania 2024 - MicroStrategy MSTR Blow off Top! - 14th Mar 24
Bitcoin Gravy Train Trend Forecast 2024 - 11th Mar 24
Gold and the Long-Term Inflation Cycle - 11th Mar 24
Fed’s Next Intertest Rate Move might not align with popular consensus - 11th Mar 24
Two Reasons The Fed Manipulates Interest Rates - 11th Mar 24
US Dollar Trend 2024 - 9th Mar 2024
The Bond Trade and Interest Rates - 9th Mar 2024
Investors Don’t Believe the Gold Rally, Still Prefer General Stocks - 9th Mar 2024
Paper Gold Vs. Real Gold: It's Important to Know the Difference - 9th Mar 2024
Stocks: What This "Record Extreme" Indicator May Be Signaling - 9th Mar 2024
My 3 Favorite Trade Setups - Elliott Wave Course - 9th Mar 2024
Bitcoin Crypto Bubble Mania! - 4th Mar 2024
US Interest Rates - When WIll the Fed Pivot - 1st Mar 2024
S&P Stock Market Real Earnings Yield - 29th Feb 2024
US Unemployment is a Fake Statistic - 29th Feb 2024
U.S. financial market’s “Weimar phase” impact to your fiat and digital assets - 29th Feb 2024
What a Breakdown in Silver Mining Stocks! What an Opportunity! - 29th Feb 2024
Why AI will Soon become SA - Synthetic Intelligence - The Machine Learning Megatrend - 29th Feb 2024
Keep Calm and Carry on Buying Quantum AI Tech Stocks - 19th Feb 24

Market Oracle FREE Newsletter

How to Protect your Wealth by Investing in AI Tech Stocks

Are Lumber Prices Signaling a Rebound in U.S. House Prices?

Housing-Market / US Housing Feb 15, 2010 - 06:25 AM GMT

By: Money_Morning

Housing-Market

Jon D. Markman writes: Source:Crude oil, gold, steel and commodity stocks have all taken it on the chin to varying degrees so far this year.

But not every commodity has suffered this same tough fate. In fact, there's even been a major standout. It's a commodity that most investors rarely think about.


I'm talking about lumber.

Raw lumber prices have zoomed more than 25% this year, even though the home construction business - its main use - has been scrambling along at record lows. This is a rather stunning development. But there's a solid explanation: Production has dropped in the face of weak demand - and dropped so much that prices have moved much higher (Please see chart below).

In other words, because there has been so little demand for lumber to build houses, timber companies have cut back on their harvesting and cutting. So now that home production is picking up a little - as was suggested in some earnings and economic reports last week - marginal new demand is pushing up the price of this surprisingly scarce commodity.

This is actually very good news, says Tom McClellan, a veteran technical analyst who has studied the lumber-housing relationship in great detail. He recently published a report that showed if you push a chart of the price of lumber futures one year forward, its lows tend to coincide with relative lows in the construction of new single-family homes. In essence, lows in home construction follow lows in lumber prices by 12 months.

This is important because we can now see that a major low in lumber prices was set a year ago - on Jan. 29, 2009, to be exact. With that knowledge in hand, you can extrapolate that single-family home construction is right now at a relative low.

This idea coincides with the Feb. 2 report of builder D.R. Horton Inc. (NYSE: DHI), which stated that every aspect of its business was improving in the wake of low mortgage rates, lower home prices and a federal tax credit. The revelation shocked Wall Street and sent most homebuilder stocks sharply higher for the first time in months.

The SPDR S&P Homebuilders (NYSE: XHB) Exchange-Traded Fund (ETF) has doubled from its March 2009 low, but has flat-lined since, waiting for the economics of the business to improve. Value funds are patiently buying the group with the expectation that the downside is now limited, as well as the belief that the upside could be substantial from these levels.

The ETF closed Tuesday at $15.45, and has stabilized above its 10-month moving average line. With a monthly close above $16.50 a share, the stock would be poised for a breakout. Watch out for this, but don't hold your breath - it may take awhile. Employment trends are still weak, and homebuilders have disappointed investors for four years running.

Source : http://moneymorning.com/2010/02/11/lumber-market/

Money Morning/The Money Map Report

©2010 Monument Street Publishing. All Rights Reserved. Protected by copyright laws of the United States and international treaties. Any reproduction, copying, or redistribution (electronic or otherwise, including on the world wide web), of content from this website, in whole or in part, is strictly prohibited without the express written permission of Monument Street Publishing. 105 West Monument Street, Baltimore MD 21201, Email: customerservice@moneymorning.com

Disclaimer: Nothing published by Money Morning should be considered personalized investment advice. Although our employees may answer your general customer service questions, they are not licensed under securities laws to address your particular investment situation. No communication by our employees to you should be deemed as personalized investment advice. We expressly forbid our writers from having a financial interest in any security recommended to our readers. All of our employees and agents must wait 24 hours after on-line publication, or 72 hours after the mailing of printed-only publication prior to following an initial recommendation. Any investments recommended by Money Morning should be made only after consulting with your investment advisor and only after reviewing the prospectus or financial statements of the company.

Money Morning Archive

© 2005-2022 http://www.MarketOracle.co.uk - The Market Oracle is a FREE Daily Financial Markets Analysis & Forecasting online publication.


Comments

Pocketlint
21 Feb 10, 10:42
Lumber prices

Lumber prices are rising because inventories have been drawn down and are now low. There's not going to be any significant increase in home building. Nobody has any money to build a new house. That and there are 9 months to a years worth of unsold house on the market now.

The idea that this blip up in lumber prices is good news is very premature. We're headed for a depression. The real estate bubble is far from deflated yet. We're going to see more defaults on both commercial and home real estate loans the 2nd half of this year. Those defaults will result in yet more bank failures.

Investing in construction is a losing propostion. Buy gold and silver for now.

Pocketlint


Post Comment

Only logged in users are allowed to post comments. Register/ Log in