mcrem51

Homebuilders Agree: January Was A Good Month

Judy - My tendency toward ADD always appreciates your culling of high and low points. Keep up the good work.



On Feb 10 08:13 AM SA Editor Judy Weil wrote:

> Dear Equity Has No Clue,
>
> I'm neither long the homebuilders, nor trying to push up or down
> those stocks. I don't own, have not owned, nor am I short any of
> them. I am simply pointing out that the homebuilders mentioned above
> all noted an upturn in sales in January. I don't have the slightest
> clue as to whether this means the housing slump is turning or is
> just pausing for air before the industry slips further in to the
> doldrums.
>
> The homebuilder executives themselves weren't certain. Pulte's, as
> mentioned above, doesn't see any improvement on the horizon, while
> Ryland's and Horton's were more positive on the general trend.<br/>
>
> I once read an article on Seeking Alpha written by a housing analyst
> who said he was watching the conference calls of homebuilders. He
> said the moment they displayed any sort of positive data or noted
> any positive trends, then that would be the first indication of a
> turn in the market for him. I, of course, don't have any idea if
> that is true, but for those that do subscribe to that theory, then
> here you have the first signs of a positive trend.
>
> Many of the articles that I have read on housing point to further
> declines ahead, so I would say one month's sales would be pretty
> risky to use as a bottom indicator.
>
> The point of this article, and conference call excerpts in general
> is to highlight how much information we can glean from the free conference
> call transcripts that Seeking Alpha offers.
>
> Whether you buy in to homebuilder-executive-... or not, the fact
> that this trend can be gleaned by simply reading all of their transcripts,
> which are free and easily accessible and don't take too long to read,
> is probably the most important part of this entire article!
>
> All the best,
>
> Judy