osborta (99.92)

Indicator #2 - Home Values

October 03, 2009 – Comments (1) | RELATED TICKERS: DHI

Here's another great link - Home values (yeah, those nasty things that got us into this mess - that and Liar Loans (can you spell A-C-O-R-N?) and stupidly low teaser rates) seem to have bottomed out and, beginning with July, seem to be headed up:  http://www2.standardandpoors.com/spf/pdf/index/SA_CSHomePrice_History_092955.xls

The neat thing about this is that July is before the "rush to beat the deadline" for the tax break, so we might see much more upside. 

 So, keep one eye on the Money Market Balances, and the other on home prices, and ignore unemployment numbers for now.  I wish when every news story says "worst unemployment since June 1983", they would go one step fruther to point out that the recovery in the stock market actually begain in August, 1982.  Some acknowledge that "Unemployment is a lagging indicator", but I'm not sure that people really understand what that means. 

 It's also good to note that a the Dow's Nadir in 1982, the Discount Rate was 10.5-11 %, compare with 0.5% today.  So, false stimulus aside (Steve Forbes likens Government stimulus to taking a bucket of water out of the deep end of the pool and pouring it into the shallow end, which is as good a picture as I've seen of what is going on with current stimulus measures), the environment is ripe for a business rebound, with tons of cash still on the sidelines while folks' 401K's are about 50% healthier than about 7 months ago