DC Housing Bear

History Indicates a Bottom

Enough already. How many times do bottom callers need to be wrong before they stop?

We May See Mortgage Rates Fall to 3.5%

Awesome. I have an even better idea. Let's have the government buy houses and just give them away. We can use the $1 trillion stimulus money and print more if we need to. Everyone in America gets a free house. Krugman said we needed something BIG and Pelosi thinks all Americans deserve a McMansion. We get the best of both worlds.

Will Lower Mortgage Rates Help Housing Recover?

This is why Paulson & Co are either stupid or think the rest of us are. It seems crazy to me that the "solution" to the housing implosion is additional government subsidies to the residential real estate market when everyone is pretty much in agreement that government intervention in the housing market is what got us here in the first place. This is insanity.

Economic Conditions Force 27% To Put Homeowner Plans on Hold

"Similarly, the majority of homeowners see renting as a waste of money. Some 87% agree that over the long-term, paying rent for housing is like throwing money away, and 95% of homeowners would rather own than rent their homes."

This just goes to show up stupid and uninformed most people are and how the media continues to reinforce this misconception. Owning a home is usually a terrible "investment" if you can even call it that. If you run a simple cash flow it would be extremely clear why that's the case. Why people think paying interest to the bank isn't "throwing money away" as well is beyond me. If the current economic crisis is an indicator of anything its how most Americans are completely clueless about their personal finances and economic policy must take into account if we're to avoid these kinds of problems in the futures.

You Are Not as Dumb as the Bear Market Makes You Feel

Sorry, but I think you should feel dumb. The past 5 years have been a mirage and anyone investing in equities should have really thought a little more about what they were doing and what was really going on. I haven't lost any money and I'm not any sort of financial guru at all. Don't think that makes any sense? You may want to start here:

www.hussmanfunds.com/w...

Amazon: Was That Its Bottom?

Do people actually still listen to anything analysts have to say about stocks? Will we ever learn? Here is a refersher from last year:

seekingalpha.com/artic...

You have to be the stupidest person on earth to still think that any of these morons have ANY idea what direction of ANY stock will be in ANY time frame when they can't even tell where the S&P is going AT ALL.

What a completely worthless post.

It Did Happen! - Cramer's Mad Money (9/29/08)

When you speculate, you get burned. I have to agree with Freemarketeer, except I wouldn't even buy mutual funds. Put together a broad based portfolio of ETFs with the lowest fees you can find and rebalance annually. Then set aside a few bux to gamble if you so choose. It's not possible to predict the direction of an individual stock over time absent inside information.

It Did Happen! - Cramer's Mad Money (9/29/08)

When you speculate, you get burned. I have to agree with Freemarketeer, except I wouldn't even buy mutual funds. Put together a broad based portfolio of ETFs with the lowest fees you can find and rebalance annually. Then set aside a few bux to gamble if you so choose. It's not possible to predict the direction of an individual stock over time absent inside information.

Options Trader: Tough-Decisions Tuesday

I don't think so. This country can use a little dose of fiscal discipline. I think I speak for a lot of people when I say home prices should be allowed to find the bottom without government intervention, the stock market should be allowed to drop to a more reasonable valuation, insolvent banks and companies should be allowed to fail and irresponsible borrowers should just declare bankruptcy or walk away from their homes and rent LIKE ME. There will be several years of economic dislocation, but those who have savings and live frugally will be rewarded with lower asset prices all around, a healthier economy and more sustainable economic growth going forward. The government needs to reduce the federal deficit by slashing entitlements, eliminating wasteful subsidies and getting rid of useless government programs. Fannie and Freddie should be dismembered and privatized so as to not be able to hurt anyone ever again. Oh, and we should abolish the Fed. Finally, people just need to be able to live without their McMansions and SUVs. Is that so terrible?

Enough with the government bailouts, the only road that leads to is the mother of all bailouts that will finally sink the entire system, in fact, maybe we're already there. We cannot continue to privatize profits and socialize losses. It's time for this country to take its medicine and I don't see any better time to do it than now.

So I guess what I'm trying to say Phil is, STOP YOUR WHINING. The government is not there to guaranty that you make money trading options.

How Low Before Housing Blows?

You're flat out wrong about about housing just like you were flat out wrong in your August 17, 2007 post "Fear in the Market" where you were telling everyone to BUY BUY BUY at the peak. We are in a deflationary death spiral which will not end until the mountain of debt that has fueled years of phony profits is unwound. It will be very unpleasant and there is nothing that perma-bulls like yourself can say to stop it.

Will a 7% Mortgage Threat Doom Fannie and Freddie?

What exactly is so wrong with getting rid of the GSEs? I find the Journal's coverage compelling. Housing is already one of the most subsidized commodities in this country, is it a wonder why housing gets overbuilt? Why do the GSEs need to exist at all? If we need to rescue them because they are to big to fail, then maybe the real solution is for them not to be so big, or better yet, not to exist at all.

I have yet to read a cogent, logical argument as to why we need the GSEs.

As for Bill Miller, I agree with the last comment. What a joker, even if your post made any sense, you lost all credibility with that last sentence. If this bear market has taught us anything it's that most "successful" fund managers or gurus are not as smart or savvy as the media wants us to think. They simply employed a strategy that worked until it stopped working. Don't be fooled by randomness.

Mortgage Rates Fly Higher

The two posts above are right. But add on top of that higher risk premiums. It's not about "wanting" rates to go down or "hoping" for the housing crash to end. The housing crash will end when home prices return to the fundamentals. Interest rates are one factor, but they are still at historic lows. The issue isn't that interest rates are too high, the issue is that homes are still way too expensive. They won't stop dropping until regular people can afford them at interest rates much higher than 6.25%. Let's not pretend there's anything anyone can do to stop that. Let's ask ourselves what we can do to mitigate the fall out and remind ourselves that millions of renters and first-time home-buyers will BENEFIT from lower home prices.

Get Ready to Short Homebuilders

John, maybe the fact that you haven't been able to make any money from speculating means that the market is actually MORE efficient than you think! But maybe that was your point.

I won't touch these stocks anymore either, really hard to tell where they go from here. Speculators could push them higher on BAD news that's not as bad as expected. Go figure.

A Simpler Explanation For Bill Miller's Losing Streak

So I take it you've made millions shorting home building stocks is that right No DooDahs? People are entitled to guess at what ever they want, making money from it is what we're talking about here.

A Simpler Explanation For Bill Miller's Losing Streak

I have an even simpler explanation. Bill Miller's strategies worked until they didn't!

Try reading A Random Walk Down Wall Street by Burton G. Malkiel and Fooled by Randomness by Nicholas Taleb for starters. Only idiots buy mutual funds and anyone here who thinks they can really beat the market over any extended period of time is delusional. Try Vegas why don't you.