Hope the formatting works. Since we're about to buy soon, I've been looking at this web site that tracks home prices in my area. It's going up, but the February prices are 94.7% of Feb 07, and the March prices are 93.3% of March 08, so the increase is only due to seasonality.

boomshakalaka!

hxxp://www.qctimes.com/articles/2008/03/19/news/iowa/doc47e03e9ea03bd427238845.txt?sPos=3


Ok, so not a huge thing really, I just wanted to say boomshakalaka. Why not a huge thing? I don't see a 'trucker strike' doing much, IF it gets off the ground. Let me say that I have heard truck off a trucker strike at least once a year for the last 9 years. Nothing ever happened. Why? Because most drivers drive for a company, and unless it is a small company they are not going to back such a strike. That means most trucks will keep rolling.

I wish them luck though. The crappy part is the talk was always because of what most view as crap pay for a job that never lets you home. Now it is just to survive the fuel prices.

I agree, I just don't think a trucker strike from independants will do much of anything except make traffic flow easier in big cities! That said, trucker strikes seem to have an effect in France?

Also, JP Morgan may raise the ante to $10/share for Bear Stearns.

http://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/a..._530338_2.html

Mon 3/24, futures looking up.

Last week was pretty good for the markets and somewhat lent credibility to the "Contra Flasch" theorem.

Flasch, what say you this week?

Ill post it in the financials thread ;)

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23781864/

Gas prices rising quickly. Credit getting tight. A falling dollar. How long will this last?

I think we're seeing the bottom now. I think we continue to see some volatility... some major ups and downs for the rest of the year, and things start improving late this year or early next year.

Same old story. Some say yes, some say no.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/23796366/

Per my assumption in above threads, the stock market is a leading indicator and if it stablizes and/or trends upwards then we may be out of the woods.

---

Flasch predicted volatility and trending higher this week and therefore the contra-flasch theorem predicts a lower market this week.

---

Interestingly, I've lost more % in my 401k than the Dow has dropped.

Dow (high of 14,198 - current 12,532) / 14,198 = 11.73% loss

My 401k has lost approx 19.1%. WTF? Must be from my overseas funds.

today is a nice start for the contra-flasch theorem. Spot on for today with very little volatility and slightly down.

If its anything like my UK pension scheme than thats near 'standard' they always seem to underperform their base a little ...

I'd also say that the fact that one of the 'staples' (ie. financials) has been hard hit will have played into it more than the overseas funds section.

Okay! Looks like the market is stabilizing and trending upwards in the past 3 weeks. Even with some bad earnings from Financials, the market has not been too spooked.

Assuming markets is a leading indicator, I am pretty optimistic about our economy and the length/breadth of a recession.

Don't presume this on the strength of the market - the market is happily misleading itself about the state of things because of the weak dollar presently imho.

If you factor out the influence of the dollar on the recent profits then you'll find that companies are performing a lot worse than expected in general (so obviously at present invest in companies which do heavy trade abroad - especially in Europe itself).

That being said my 'weather vane' for the American economy is my father in law who works in retail and he thinks its picking up slightly at present .. time will tell.

Okay, I know this may be an unpopular statement, but I am calling it. The market has hit bottom and it is rebounding. I've read bottom is hit approx 6 months into a recession and as the market is a leading indicator, I am predicting we are on the uptick.

I'll go with you that the market is a leading indicator, but only when the dollar is stable. With the dollar still dropping, there is a thought out there that foreigners are buying up bargains which are driving DOW30 stocks upwards. So although the market is improving, the capitalization relative to foreign currencies is actually dropping.

I can't believe the Aussie dollar is nearly equal with the US. Doesn't seem like that long ago to me when it was less than 0.50c. Great time to buy online, and I've been doing my best to keep the US online companies in business, at least! :D

Oh, one more thing. If at all possible, please spend your rebate checks on products instead of paying off debt!

If only the rebate checks could have been timed for Nov just before the Thanksgiving sales.

Fixed that for you. No sense in increasing the trade deficit even further and sending the money offshore.

Good luck in finding those cartman.

Do, and when, do you guys see the dollar start to turn it around?

We.re spending nearly all of it on domestic airlines. So there. :)

So fly a Boeing-fleet carrier. :)

If someone wants to give me an extra $1200 then I will spend my rebate check on crap. Otherwise I will spend the money as normal money, and buy crap when possible. Gas makes that hard when you have to fill up the tank so much.

If the government wants people to spend their surplus money on products instead of paying off debt they need to issue debit cards or something else that at least attempts to encourage, if not require, purchase of goods in retail outlets.

The one time your average American thinks about saving money or paying off debt instead of spend spend spend is during times of economic crisis. Handing out checks to your average American during economic crisis and then being surprised when they pay an extra bill or put it in savings is ridiculous of our government.

I've got one credit card left and then I'm 100% debt free. My surplus check is going towards that.

I just filled two 14 gallon tanks for about $50 a piece. I drive two cars that get pretty good mileage, I cannot imagine what the SUV drivers are paying right now.

My check is going towards bills and some into savings. I think the checks are a good idea in general, just because the less debt people have, the better the ecomomy should rebound when this is all over.

If the government thinks the checks will be spend on goodies, I dont think they did enough research.

I have to admit I'm somewhat bemused when I hear commentators say that they expect the dollar to strengthen in the near term ...

I'd have thought that flooding an economy with 'free cash' via. the rebates is hardly the way to either dampen inflation or strengthen the dollar ....

Then again I can't understand why candidates believe that having a fuel tax holiday makes economic sense either (feel free to try and explain this if you know why - I'd be interested to hear why its anything but a short-term measure destinated to grab votes but further destabalise the economy in the long term).

Its about $70 to fill up our Aspen at the moment, that being said I'm back in England at the moment and its over £5 ($10) a gallon here these days ...

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1915...-a-gallon.html

.... do also realise that the UK gallon is a somewhat different size to that in America (1 US gallon = 0.83267384 UK Gallon - so real price of fuel is around $8/US Gallon over here) ...... also do bear in mind that in general cars in England are a lot more fuel efficient than in America ...

IMO the rebate checks makes the recession into a W but doesnt end it. I'll be spending mine on bills and gas BUT.....

I TRULY believe that people spend the $ more than once. They have spent it in their heads long before the check even arrives. They buy stuff in the month prior and rationalize it with the impending arrival of the check. Then when the check arrives they'll spend it again (or stats say 40% of it) and then put it in an account that either pays for bills or necessities (thus spending it again).

What about the home buyers? I mean, they are buying homes worth more then they can afford (with no down-payments, ect.).

Loans are tough to come by right now and AFAIK 100% financing has all but disappeared.

Welcome to American politics!

I know. I was pointing out that everyone has a share of the blame.

Here's something supporting my point that due to the low dollar, foreign purchases of US instruments is on a sharp rise:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?p...&refer=economy

I think there are plenty of SUV drivers who really don't give a crap. They may say they do, but though don't act like they do. I drove from where I live up here to Waco yesterday, 7 hours. I will do a couple MPH over the speed limit and get some of my best gas mileage with the cruise control set at 70-72. Yet I see nothing but big SUVs flying by me doing 80+ MPH. I know they are decreasing there MPG at the speed, but they clearly feel getting to their off ramp 5 miles down the road 30 seconds earlier just to sit at a red light is better for them.


Home buyers are to blame because there are some dumb ass people out there. We (wife and I) deal in almost nothing but repos, and as I go around to the usual neighborhoods for repos down here to take pictures I look at the person in a house worth $65,000 and they have their two or threes nice cars with 20" wheels and custom paint. I take a picture of their house knowing it is about to be repo'd, then go home and see they haven't even paid their property tax for the last couple years. They are idiots spending money on the wrong crap. Hell, I have had my Chrysler 300 for a year now and have not even had extra tinit put on the windows. I see 300's at some of these houses with the custom grills, add on chrome, wheels, and new paint. That is one reason I don't have a problem making my house payment on a house worth twice as much as theirs though.

Lenders are also to blame. Some local mortgage brokers have in the recent past made up fake documents just to get people approved for loans they should not be getting.


We got 100% financing 4 years ago thankfully. You are correct is far as I am concerned about now though, as we haven't seen anyone get it for a while. The best you can do is get a grant to cover your down payment, which is not open for everyone.....

Is this really debatable? All of our assets (property and companies especially) are being bought up cheaply by foreign investors.

The look rich on credit phase seems to be over. Now you actually have to earn your possessions, it seems. I do agree, every one shares the blame. I'm just not too keen on the government using taxpayer dollars to support those who did.

A little late on the response, but yeah, I know there are plenty of morons out there who bought well above tyheir means...but they are just consumers who tend to take what they can get, and I dont expect them to have the same level of accountability as a financial institution.

I expect financial institutions, who enjoy the benefits of borrowing at the fed rate, to be a little more responsible than flippant knuckleheads who make $30k/yr, and want to purchase $800k houses with <5% down.

But I do agree in one sense...those borrowers do piss me off as well.

Yeah I agree. They are idiots for borrowing what they can't afford, but people often need saving from themselves, and that's where the other idiots who lend the money are supposed to look at how much these people earn and realise that this is a terrible idea and shoot them down.

1Q 08 at .9% GDP.

Well, I guess the 5 people that voted 'No Recession' were (most probably) right. I'm okay with it, maybe this will start a small rally.

http://money.cnn.com/2008/05/29/news...ion=2008052911

Like Buffett said, definition be damned, to main street America it "feels" like we're in a recession.

It depends on where oil prices go. If they going up, I don't know how you can avoid a recession.

Rising energy prices are one of the reasons we're not technically in a recession, not that that gives most people much comfort.

Still better off than I was 7, 14, 21 years ago, esp. now that I paid off all high-interest debts and both vehicles are paid off as well.

Really?

he said technically.

I actually mis-read it at first. Long day.

This summer will be brutal, IMO, when it comes to the housing market. the Government did not step in in any timely or meaningful manner, as I thought they would, and the bulk of the foreclosures will begin to hit the market in June and continue to climb through the end of the year. How this translates to the broader market, I dont know, other than it will continue to put additional downward pressure on prices. Just my opinion but the call earlier about a bottom may be wrong. Check back in an hour as I could change my mind but this is what Im seeing here and, while not the center of the world, we're kind of in between the apocalypse cities and the cities that have rebounded...kind of in the middle so maybe a decent barometer.

You are in Florida, perhaps the worst housing market in the country (according to cnn.com, 5 of the 7 worse housing markets are in Florida). I don't think it is a good indicator for the rest of the country.

NE Florida is not the same as SW or S or C Florida. Not great but not as devastated as those.

I buy that considering the five cities they listed are Miami, West Palm, Orlando, Tampa and Naples.

yeah, those areas are destroyed from what I hear. We were able to avoid the massive run up so I dont think we'll see too much more downside BUT the foreclosures have just begun to hit the market in massive amounts and we wont escape those in full. The summers are usually slower anyways but this one has me a bit more nervous.

For the Market, I think the housing mess has been factored into all the impacted companies' stock prices assuming the efficient market concept. I am sure the analysts have gone through companies/industries that has/will been impacted and stock prices have adjusted downward accordingly. With the Market stabilized and trending upward, I am optimistic for my 401K.

For the Economy, certainly foreclosures, lower home equity and the impact of oil will impact buying behavior. But unlike late last year when the foreclosure mess was still in denial, it is an acknowledged problem now and government/industry is actively trying to deal with it. Alot of people will still be hurt but overall, I am optimistic.

P.S. I know there are pundits on this board that doubt the impact of the rebate checks but hey, I for one spent it on American companies (albeit foreign made) products and believe there will be some positive impact.

Any opinions of which one is the best area to buy a rental home in anticipation of a rebound? Ex.

Which city is impacted worst?
Which city will rebound first?
After the rebound, which city will appreciate most?

whew....from what I hear, only hear and read, those cities are looking bad for a long long time.

I live in the Tampa area currently and while I think we are yet to hit complete bottom, I dont see it getting dramatically worse...although dramatic could be a highly relative term.

If I had to project(and I'm no expert on these things), I would guess that Miami was likely hit hardest, followed by West Palm, Tampa, then Orlando.

Recovery? Miami, then Tampa, then Orlando, then West Palm, then Naples.

Miami & Tampa have reasonably strong economies overall, which will help the housing markets(arguably the 2 biggest drivers of the previous FL housing market spike), next is Orlando(tourism and the like). West Palm I see as a very difficult market to recover as quickly, as even though it is reasonably close to Miami, it is not a tourist hotspot, and is really more of a place for people who's jobs are driven by Miami, but dont want to live in Miami. So commutes are fairly lengthy for many people, and their likely will be a scaling down of lifestyle for that area...which doesnt bode well for the working class there, thus lowering the attraction for new homebuyers to the area.

Naples is a bit of an enigma to me...it could go either way in terms of recovery. It's primarily an area of haves and have nots...not a ton of middle class industries...so who knows? Do investors come in and try to leverage the area, or do the working class go under, thus making it a "rich-only play area".

Sorry...I'm too lazy to check all of my statements for factual accuracy at the moment...but thats my impression having lived in most major areas of the state over time. But I'll say this...looking at pricing in the Tampa area and comparing it to even more rural areas of the state...I have to think Tampa area will recover as well as most other areas, if not quicker.

A rebound on house prices won't happen until people believe its happening - its a chicken and egg situation ....

Similarly such 'crashes' are made worse because people believe one is going to happen and so hold off buying, which in turn weakens the market.

(price bubbles are simply the opposite effect where people are desperate to buy and believe houses will rise if they don't get in NOW, hence they over-bid and by effect cause the rises)

gee given the news today i think the "getting better" camp definately got it wrong. i think we're just beginning the "2nd leg down"

Can't argue with your specific statement. Scared to check my 401k balance this weekend.

Although we were not in the formal definition of a recession in 1Q it doesn't mean that we are not in the beginnings of one 2Q.

i dont know. 1 day's analysis, especially on a historic day, like today, it's tough to say what is going on.

Some argue the jobs 3 wasnt as bad as stated due to the kids from HS entering the job market.

Oil jumped $10 today on weak news, IMO.

but what the hell do i know, im generally exactly wrong.

Perhaps we're in a volatile Recessory.

It's tough to get a handle on things. You have the bad side, then you'll get a glimpse of good news.

So I applied for a job at the hospital and I was told that there was a freeze on hiring. This is the third job that has told me that... How long will this last because I would like to save a little money before I go to law school next year.

Not a huge problem (well, a big problem for buyers I guess), but a small pain in the butt for us with the fall out of what went on with the mortgage companies. Mergers, and then more mergers. We have a few houses that are kind of 'on hold' with people waiting for responses to their offers because the mortgage/asset management companies have been merging and screwing things up with people not know if their head is in their ass or not. The people at these companies left over that is. We had been dealing with the Houston office of one company for one house, find out one day the office is no longer there. They closed it and no one told people like us who are selling their repos. Took my wife 3-4 days to find out who to deal with now as everyone left in the company tried to pass stuff from that office onto other people.

I actually had an opportunity to speak to some financial analysts about two months back and their view was that the problems are far from over at this time.

They estimated that the total losses that have to be written off for the sub-prime issue is in the region of US$800 billion or so and, at least from a couple of months ago, the write-offs were only at about US$300 billion.

They think that banks/financial institutions are going to slowly release bad news/more write-offs over an extended period of time so as to ensure the economy doesn't completely die overnight but that will also mean that market confidence will be very low and it'll be a long time before the market recovers.

Hopefully the above made some sort of sense since I'm not a financial person by trade.

I'm hearing real estate in South Florida has been flat for the past couple of months...which is better than being in free-fall, like is has been for about a year or so. Whether it starts to come back this year or not will depend a lot on the hurricane season.

Maybe the worse is still ahead with all the damn uncertainty. Although strangely enough, I've seen 2 additional for sale signs on my street (3 total now) in the past month ... we'll see if they sell.

Regardless of whether or not we were in a recession 4Q 07 and 1Q 08 (which we weren't officially), I concede there is a chance that we can dip into one.

FWIW, there have been some warnings that bonuses/raises won't be as good this year for my big-4 company.

Just an outsider's POV.

The US is in recession, and as a consequence, the entire world is basically on a downswing.

I too think were heading into a recession in Q3/Q4 which is in contrast to those who think things will pick up then. Considering that usually Im exactly wrong take it FWIW. Housing here has stagnated so I cant imagine that S Florida is finding any footing but what I will say is generally in fliorida Summer selling is tough anyways so if a seller is "ok" leaving prices alone on their house for sale, "cuz its the summer" I can see some flattening but when we get to august/september and the expectations to sell it rise I'd expect to see pricing get more aggressive.

Oil broke the $140 mark, Dow took a pretty nice fall.

I think personal anecdotes are only useful for the region you're in. Florida is doing bad right now, Boston/Mass is in kind of a holding pattern/slight recovery, but when I was in Texas everyone I talked to said the economy was taking off (and that seemed to apply to the rest of the Southwest). The US is just so big that unless it is a truly huge event - stagflation of the late 70's, boom of the 1990's - it is not going to hold true across the country.

I'd also like to see some academic studies of the media's role in economics. They certainly overplay the negatives, and that leads to lower consumer confidence, but I suspect the actual impact is minimal. The impact on a poll like this though is huge. A whopping 94% voted for recession when we haven't even had one quarter of negatice growth.

Like they say, economists and the media have correctly predicted 10 of the last 1 recessions.

remember we said (along with Buffett) that it may not technically be a recession but for most American's it will feel like one.

I see Starbucks is closing 600 stores in the next year and cutting 12,000 people.

I kind of have the same feeling as you. It seems to be hitting certain areas harder than others.

One thing that needs to get re-adjusted is the cost of going out. It seems a dinner out (a basic burger and fries meal, a coke or beer) is pricey. A night out to a movie is pretty expensive as well. Hell, even pizza is starting to get slightly expensive.

so is the passing of the housing bill the throes of the bottom?

US housing bill may stem downward spiral: analysts - Yahoo! News

6-6-6 deal? What the hell is this Dominos? :) Food prices are the highest inflationary trend though, even more so than energy. At least the economy seems to be doing better.And for what it's worth, the high Euro (amongst other factors) is killing European growth ratesFunny you don't hear about that European recession.

It is very true that the media completely overplays everything, and the economy is no exception. Negativity makes for good headlines I guess, while any positive stories are shoved to the last page or completely ignored entirely.

With that being said, however, my wife (who does the majority of the grocery shopping) says she has noticed a large increase in food prices. One example is the cost of a head of lettuce. It used to cost around $ .50 for a head of lettuce, now it is $1.50. Our food bill has gone up around $30 for the same exact grocery list we have been using for months now. Don't get me started on gas prices. For those of us with children, the cost of everything going up is huge. It affects everything we do, including groceries, travel, and leisure activities.

Bishop: I've heard a lot about a global slowdown. Admittedly you don't hear European economic news as often as American on the networks, but theremay be a good reason for that.

Easily the biggest run up on grocery prices I can recall in my lifetime. And to be honest, much more noticeable to me than the gas difference over the past year. I've been consistently surprised how little play the food cost difference gets in the media compared to the gas. Never mind any connection between the two, I rarely hear food price increase mentioned, to the point that I had wondered at times whether it was all it my head ... then I looked at the receipt again & knew it was very much for real.

The food price increase isn't even noticeable around here, since the hippies that live here (90% of the population) have been shopping exclusively at food co-ops for years now. The price of an organic tomato was already $3.99 a pound, so now that the "normal" grocery stores are almost that high, no one (other than me and a few other po' people) even cares.

This is partly because Europe doesn't rely on consistently aggressive growth to ensure prosperity in the way the U.S. economy does. This is one of the (few) benefits of semi-planned economies.

Well that and European Central Banks thoughout history have been far more aggressive on combating inflation, meaning that economic growth of ~2% has been considered decent in Europe, while in the US we go for more ~3%.

But yes, there is plenty about a global economic slowdown. It was especially noticable when the Brits had to bail out Northern Rock.

Another thing that is in the "hush-hush" category is the fact that food is now being sold with lower portions for the same (or even more) price. Example: a box of cheerios that in the past was 16.5 oz is now being sold in a 15 oz box for the same price (or more in some places). This way, the manufacturers are not losing as much money and the average consumer never notices the decrease in serving size.

I'm not sure the word "now" was necessary there. This has been going on for years and is a fairly common cost saving measure.

Is Northern Rock an investment bank, or a regular savings and loan bank?

I was just comparing the prices of perhaps a year ago to the ones now as a reflection of the overall increase of the cost of food. I am positive this type of thing has been going on in the past, but it is more noticeable now to the discriminating shopper. :)

2Q GDP 3.3% is pretty darn good. Most give some credit to the stimulus check (that I promptly spent on a Dell Quad core).

Not out of the woods yet but pretty good week for the market so far.

eh, youre leaving out the fact that this number is buoyed by higher than expected exports due to the weak dollar. This parachute will get smaller going forward, unfortunately.

Until Jan. 20, when it will miraculously change.

Hell yeah! :D

US to Euro is .68 from a low of .62. Dollar seems to be strengthening already or did I misunderstand your Jan 20 comment?

Bucc would be referring to Obama (presumably) taking office, and the media narrative switching almost immediately from bad economy to good economy.

In my industry things couldn't be better. Contractors are picking and choosing which jobs they bid due to having so much work now. The only problem they are having is a shortage of skilled welders (which is fine by me) and fitters.

My company is having some tough financial times solely due to the plumetting number of new homes (i.e., reduced revenues from new water hookups). We have been enjoying steady growth for 15 years but since we had to put this year's budget together in mid-2007, we ended up overestimating the revenues from hookup, as well as the catch-22 situation of water conservation. However, if you look at our job postings, there are a number of constant high-demand openings, particularly for electric linemen (which there is a nationwide shortage), pipe welders (as Warhammer mentioned) and certain IT positions (which require tons of experience).

Have you considered alternate methods of joining pipe?

None of our new pipes are cast iron, it's just repairing older water/gas pipes, valves and connectors.

Ah... I work for a company that produces mechanical couplings for piping systems. I've been able to make some in roads in Memphis because contractors here can't find any one that can weld pipe anymore. Plus, for renovations no flame is much safer.

I see things staying soft at least 'til next year.

Am i the only one seeing a massive run-up on gas/food/pretty much every other fucking thing on the planet over the next month? Gustav is going to make us his bitch.

Anyways, it's starting to turn around somewhat at the retail store I work at. Maybe it's just the pre-football run up on TV's, but it was fucking barren for the majority of the spring/early summer. Even moreso than normal IMO.

That's the thing about IT- there is always a need for people with exorbitant amounts of experience. However, over the past 10 years, entry and mid level jobs have been decimated in this country so it's very difficult to reach those experience levels. It's cheaper to send the entry level stuff overseas and then companies have been working on eliminating "mid level" jobs because they cost too much and make them "entry level" while wanting lots of experience.

SI

Well, really, retail's sweet spot is the 3 months before Christmas. Back-to-school also gets a lot of attention, depending on the industry.

SI

Working in the legal industry (albeit not in the US), the partners have a very pessimistic outlook on the overall economy until 2009.