"Magazine-Cover-Indicator" Indicator....

Existing Home Sales Charts

Tim -- they could stabilize in a range near there eventually I'd guess. But if as you can see from the graph, most would-be buyers jumped in prematurely (in the bubble, afraid of waiting and building up a down payment, etc), then the buyers would be used up temporarily, so that first time buyers are below long term average for a while.

Now It Really Is Time for Federal Agencies to Act on Housing

Once house price declines have finished (a longs ways down yet to get back to the long term trend lines), *then* a recovery can begin.

Slowing this correction down, as suggested here, means continued losses for builders, furniture makers, etc., as the correction is prolong.

That would mean more of these busniess go out of business than would in a faster correction.

The aid for speed and beneficial disruption in a fast correction are defaults and bankruptcies helping to re-set prices more quickly.

Likely we will get instead a bailout that prolongs the downturn and causes far, far more long term damage to the American economy.

The bailouts are yet another version of central planning instead of free markets.

Thinking your own interference and intelligence is wiser than the collective intelligence of everyone else (the market).

Magazine Cover Indicator: Housing Bottom In Place?

At this point, when everyone and their brother and dog know about the magazine cover indicator, it finally won't work probably, and the new indicator of this is the repetative pointing out of the magazine covers. So....if that is true, then it could be the beginning of the end of the magazine cover contrarian play.