Down goes the Dow

True that housing crashes are always a local phenomenon.

First of all, let's remember that housing prices are practically a non-issue in 99% of America, geographically speaking. Someone in upstate NY with an $80k 4-bedroom house doesn't even think of his house in terms of price (doesn't care, probably doesn't know); it's immaterial to him if his house drops in price, as long as it doesn't burn down or something. It's only in the 1% of America that housing prices are a nonstop topic of conversation, because the reality of owning a house there has changed drastically over the past decade, and the vast majority of the population resides there.

I think it will be interesting to see what happens with housing in the areas where people always talk about it, given the following demographic and economic factors:

* Many of the 1st-time housebuyers are double-high-income-no-kids in their 30s or 40s. The thing about that is, many of the high-income careers nowadays are desk jobs where your income peaks around that stage in your career when you're in your 30s or 40s. White collar Millenials have idiotically demanded that employers give them fast velocity of pay increase and title promotion instead of slow and steady career growth. They are pricing themselves out of the job market for when they hit middle age.

* Related to the above point, the econcomic effects of remote work have not been realized yet. No doubt there will be a tidal wave of insourcing/outsourcing. You're going to see big firms building giant offices in places like Poland, where they can get white collar professionals for 20k USD / year. (If timezones didn't exist and English became a universally spoken language, high-paid desk job folks in the U.S. would be absolutely screwed.)

* Yet another point on remote work and pay. Flexible work schedule has always been considered by employers to be a "benefit." Total "pay and benefits" for an advertised job means less pay for more benefits, or vice-versa. Employers are allowing flexibility on a whole new level. Most remote employees don't even feel obligated request that a meeting be moved back because it conflicts with their appointment to take their pet cat to the vet. Then you have the question about vacation time. If remote workers can tell their manager that this week I'll work 2 hours in Monday and 14 on Tuesday to make up for it, they essentially have infinite vacation time. Why waste a vacation day for a flight if you can just say you're going to connect to the on-flight WiFi and work? And there are all these questions about productivity. Is 8 hours of work at home really the same as 8 at the office? Are some employees sitting their laptop on the kitchen counter while they wash dishes during meetings where they need to pay attention? Are you "working" if you're stuck on a difficult problem and go do an hour of yoga while thinking about the problem? The whole concept of salaried work is being abstract.

* A sad reality is that Baby Boomers will soon be moving into retirement communities, leaving behind a huge inventory of houses.

* Housing prices obviously follow the stock market and a lot of the housing mania the past year was because many people made a fortune in the stock market, leaving them with more money to spend on a house. The apparent bear market in stocks will put a damper on house prices. If many people bought a house under the assumption that it would go up 20% as Zillow seems to predict every year, they might put it up for sale when they realize their house is an expense and they don't particularly like the house anyways.

* Preferences in houses change. I believe that in the 2007-2008 crash, the "McMansion" was the style of house that everybody wanted, and which were overbuilt across the U.S. We could see that many Millenials decide McMansions are cool and move to where they can afford one.

Most likely, though, not much will change in the near future.

What I'm saying in a nutshell is that many people are paying a lot for houses because they assume their income is going to keep going up. (This is something I always roll my eyes when Dave Ramsey is talking to a caller about his or her financial situation and Dave says "And your income will go up" as an assumption in his advice.)

This idea of guaranteed income growth really only applies for certain types of careers like unionized skilled labor.

seattle prattle wrote:

sarcasm detector guy wrote:

Well done, sir.

No, really -not being sarcastic.

A very different interpretation may be inferred from the jobs reports once they were revised, and it isn't small or without implications.

It does tend to support Dr. Racket's claim that the economy is in good shape and we should ignore the impacts of omicron and covid on its recovery, all in all.

I've been in health care for 25+ years now and can confidently say Omicron is a huge nothing burger in the grand scheme. Delta was different. Now as to the market and financial world's reactions to Omicron, I have no idea.

90902022 wrote:

seattle prattle wrote:

No, really -not being sarcastic.

A very different interpretation may be inferred from the jobs reports once they were revised, and it isn't small or without implications.

It does tend to support Dr. Racket's claim that the economy is in good shape and we should ignore the impacts of omicron and covid on its recovery, all in all.

I've been in health care for 25+ years now and can confidently say Omicron is a huge nothing burger in the grand scheme. Delta was different. Now as to the market and financial world's reactions to Omicron, I have no idea.

Per NYT, across the US 2,619 deaths per day from COVID are being reported, far higher than Delta, and climbing up a vertical wall. Looks like we'll get close to 3,300 per day, the all-time worst, hit before vaccines came out.

No idea how you can confidently say this is a nothingburger.

The economic question is harder. Mixed signals on that one.

jamin wrote:

True that housing crashes are always a local phenomenon. .

the whole point of 2008-9, the entire thing, the base, the focus, the cause the reason, is that the housing crash was national. The risk people thought that was impossible so they rated diverse mortgage securities as 'safe.' Because if the mortgages were from all over the country then they never ALL go sour.

But yeah they all went sour. Kaboom.

So yeah housing crashes can be national.

agip wrote:

90902022 wrote:

I've been in health care for 25+ years now and can confidently say Omicron is a huge nothing burger in the grand scheme. Delta was different. Now as to the market and financial world's reactions to Omicron, I have no idea.

Per NYT, across the US 2,619 deaths per day from COVID are being reported, far higher than Delta, and climbing up a vertical wall. Looks like we'll get close to 3,300 per day, the all-time worst, hit before vaccines came out.

No idea how you can confidently say this is a nothingburger.

The economic question is harder. Mixed signals on that one.

Lol. Your sources on health are liberal sources. Not surprising from your posting history. Allah bless you

1. Surprised there are so many deaths from Omicron. Nobody even cares about Omicron. You go around and it's nothing like 1 year ago. Is it all anti-vax dying? March is gonna be the start of the end of covid at least until next winter.

2. House prices are def gonna come down. More building + rates going up a bit + boomers moving to communties.... no way they go up as fast as before.

90902022 wrote:

agip wrote:

Per NYT, across the US 2,619 deaths per day from COVID are being reported, far higher than Delta, and climbing up a vertical wall. Looks like we'll get close to 3,300 per day, the all-time worst, hit before vaccines came out.

No idea how you can confidently say this is a nothingburger.

The economic question is harder. Mixed signals on that one.

Lol. Your sources on health are liberal sources. Not surprising from your posting history. Allah bless you

Conspiracy Theorists’ Playbook, Rule #34: If you cannot offer a rational, fact-based counter argument, attack the source.

Ghost of Igloi wrote:

Maser wrote:

Gente you used to bring value to this thread, but now you seem to bring mostly bad attitude, and recently you’ve been flat-out wrong about things.

This time you try to minimize your error by trivializing the buybacks. There is a reason they did it, when they did. The amount was sufficient to achieve their objective.

I think I’ll take a break for a while, hopefully things will calm down. Best wishes to all.

Like politics, if you have a different market opinion some people get really pissed.

It wasn't about market opinion, it was about facts. When I make a mistake I own up to it. When I was reading AMZN 10K I saw the statement about stock buybacks and immediately posted a mea culpa. Where am I wrong below

APPLE GAAP Net Income from 12/31/2019 - 12/31/2021 is up 75%; $57527 Billion to $100555 Billion.

Alphabet GAAP Net Income from 12/31/2019 -12/31/2021 is up 119%; $34343 Billion to $76033 Billion.

PEs on those dates are for TTM Earnings 9/30 to 9/30; annual earnings unknown at 12/31. The argument was about earnings not PEs.

The actual PEs; AAPL 23.08 - 29.45 and GOOG 27.20 - 25.79 now that their quarter ending 12/31/2021 reports are in.

Also I guess you missed where I called out agip about AMZN's "blowout quarter" because of Rivian.

investing noob wrote:

People have been saying to wait for a housing crash to buy a home for 8+ years. I'm glad I didn't listen and bought in 2017 and 2019. My first house went up 13.5% in two years and my current home is up 24%. It's location dependent, but where I live - there is literally no more land to build anything. Even during the 2008 recession, home prices in my area didn't go down. They just stayed flat for a bit before going back up.

When I bought in early 2021 some people told me to wait a few months for the "housing crash." Glad I didn't listen because the housing index in my neighborhood has gone up another 20% since then.

Unlike stocks, the housing market is predictable in the short term. Housing prices in populated areas rarely go down because people stop putting their house on the market if they can wait for demand to come back, and we're not going to see a bunch of foreclosures like 2008. In many places, houses were getting 30 offers after one weekend and selling 30% over "asking price" (an arbitrary number in 2021), which was a sign that they were still priced too low.

Swaglord369 wrote:

1. Surprised there are so many deaths from Omicron. Nobody even cares about Omicron. You go around and it's nothing like 1 year ago. Is it all anti-vax dying? March is gonna be the start of the end of covid at least until next winter.

2. House prices are def gonna come down. More building + rates going up a bit + boomers moving to communties.... no way they go up as fast as before.

1. Yes, it's the unvaxxed who are dying, almost completely. There are tens of millions of old, unhealthy, unvaccinated americans. thousands of them are dying every day. I think we're all just sighing and saying 'ah well suicide by COVID is their right as free adults nothing I can do' and moving on.

2. The long-term pricing of housing is interesting. New housing construction has been quite low, which would support higher prices if it continues. But the US population isn't growing anymore and may never grow much, unless we start taking in lots of immigrants. But even if we do...immigrants will take a generation to get up to house-buying levels of wealth. So they might be not too relevant to housing prices for a while. Although renters do exert some bottom-up pressure I suppose.

I have no idea and no position, but I have to think that a nation with no population growth will not have rising prices of homes. But if construction stays low, then maybe prices won't fall. Tricky.

Maser wrote:

la gente esta muy loca wrote:

PEs on those dates are for TTM Earnings 9/30 to 9/30; annual earnings unknown at 12/31. The argument was about earnings not PEs.

Also 500,000 share repurchase by AMZN is less than .1% of outstanding shares.

Gente you used to bring value to this thread, but now you seem to bring mostly bad attitude, and recently you’ve been flat-out wrong about things.

This time you try to minimize your error by trivializing the buybacks. There is a reason they did it, when they did. The amount was sufficient to achieve their objective.

I think I’ll take a break for a while, hopefully things will calm down. Best wishes to all.

They bought 500,000 shares sometime between 1/3 and 2/2. In that time frame 83,556,300 shares traded. So they bought almost .6% of the shares traded. If you think that propped up the stock price than I believe you've spent too much time in Christiania.

On Friday 41,396 AMZN 2/04/2022 3200 Calls and 9341 Puts. That's the equivalent of over 5 million shares. The tail wags the dog

AMZN 02/04/2022 Stock volume 12,672,793; Option volume 784,687 ( 54.3% Call and 45.7% Put )

There could be some more "Pelotons" revealed over the next year, i.e. companies that over-estimated demand for products during America's latest spending binge. Shipping over the Pacific is still backed up, with higher transit times companies have to forecast demand further out, many of them will over- (or under-) estimate.

In reply to real estate:

I disagree that boomers will move out of their single family homes. When we were looking for a house, we were competing with empty nester boomers. Men in their late 50s and 60s were outbidding young families with kids. No idea why empty nesters would want a big house all to themselves but it is what it is.

We are the only couple under 40 in our neighborhood. We were only able to get in because my boomer neighbor across the street is my buddy, so we were able to buy from the previous homeowner by private sale when he moved out. Otherwise my boomer buddy said he would have bought the house for himself. No idea why he needs a third home but it is what it is.

There are a few neighbors in their 70s on our street. No plans to move out of their SFH anytime soon.

In reply to outsourcing:

The tech companies tried this in the late 90s and early 2000s and it was an epic fail. The talent just isn't there compared to in Silicon Valley. You aren't going to get the same quality from some random cheap labor country as you are here. The smartest people in the world work at FAANG/MA GA companies for a reason.

More real estate:

One of my boomer neighbors is widowed and lives in a 6bed, 5.5bath, 5664 SF home. All by herself. So much for boomers downsizing.

Take it to the official thread. But perhaps it ain’t from what you say it is.

https://mobile.twitter.com/tickerguy/status/1489680050219802629

90902022 wrote:

agip wrote:

Per NYT, across the US 2,619 deaths per day from COVID are being reported, far higher than Delta, and climbing up a vertical wall. Looks like we'll get close to 3,300 per day, the all-time worst, hit before vaccines came out.

No idea how you can confidently say this is a nothingburger.

The economic question is harder. Mixed signals on that one.

Lol. Your sources on health are liberal sources. Not surprising from your posting history. Allah bless you

The Communists at National Public Radio seem to support his assertions.

Headlline: "Americans get sicker as omicron stalls everything from heart surgeries to cancer care"

link:

I bet you are right, with the bail-out money drying up and lifeline support being spent down.

Racket has been a big voice for this phenomenon.

jamin wrote:

What I'm saying in a nutshell is that many people are paying a lot for houses because they assume their income is going to keep going up. (This is something I always roll my eyes when Dave Ramsey is talking to a caller about his or her financial situation and Dave says "And your income will go up" as an assumption in his advice.)

This idea of guaranteed income growth really only applies for certain types of careers like unionized skilled labor.

That may be the case, but at least when i bought our house quite a while ago, we were limited to the loan we could apply for by the mortgage company based on our current (not future) salaries, and that dictated the price range of the houses we could consider buying. Maybe things have changed since then, but there was a formula that went something like 30% of your take-home pay could be used to figure your mortgage capability.