– The National Association of Realtors says pending home [sales] rose 7.4% from July to August, an unexpected piece of positive news for the battered U.S. housing market.
The group said Wednesday its seasonally adjusted index of pending sales for existing homes rose to 93.4 from an upwardly revised July reading of 87. The reading was the highest since June 2007.
Higher demand brought about by lower prices. Who could have predicted such a thing?
h/t Tech1
slevin, the stock market is a terrible indicator of economic strength. A company that loses 30% of it’s value on paper in a day doesn’t suddenly have 30% less employees, or 30% less product rolling off the assembly lines. Revenues continue to flow in at the same rate as they did the day before. What matters is how that company is performing over the next quarter and the next half year. 5 years ago the TSX was under 8000. Today it’s above 10,000. Still a 20% gain, right? If all of the alarmists that are pointing to the stock market fall can claim the drop means a recession, I can point to a gain and claim “Ha recession over”.
Oh Pete… Im not going to argue with you.
“Oh Pete… Im not going to argue with you.”
Because you can’t slevin. You’re an idiot and Pete is throwing facts at you.
Is the market now above 2005? Yes.
So I guess when you wrote, “Even at our previously enjoyed rate of growth it would take years to get back to where we were.”
You only meant “two” right?
Fear-mongerer who’s probably only too happen to believe that “We need a 30 day plan!”
ron in kelowna: ” … It took 32 quarters for the naysayers to be right. About a 0.300 batting average.”
Make that a 0.031 batting average. The reason they invented participant ribbons.
I think the point is that they have been predictin a recession since Bush got elected. Kruggers was predicting a “W” shaped recession. We still aren’t in one yet, but it certainly doesn’t look good right now. However, it doesn’t change the fact that the doomsayers have been a stopped clock for seven and a half years.
The DOW 27000 people are going to be “right” some day, if we wait long enough.
Lance- Facts? Facts that don’t have any relevance perhaps.
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TORONTO – The Toronto stock market jumped over 200 points Wednesday, snapping a vicious five session losing streak at the end of a whipsaw trading day.
Posted by: pete at October 8, 2008 8:40 PM
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Yup. After it lost nearly 5000 points in two months, some 30% of its value.
Posted by: Lloyd Fister at October 8, 2008 8:49 PM
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yeah, but that’s old news, Lloyd. it’s on an upswing now.
Posted by: pete at October 8, 2008 8:58 PM
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ONE DAY OF WITH A 200 POINT RISE AND THAT’S AN UPSWING??
That’s hysterical, I’m sorry I can’t stop laughing. Your naive optimism is childlike. Let’s report back in a few hours and see how the TSX is doing, then we’ll know a little more. Let’s wait a few months and we’ll know even more and in a few years I think we’ll have a pretty good idea of what happened.
sL
Oh sure! now that it’s on an upswing you want to wait a few months or a few years! But a couple of days of declines and you’re all ready to declare it’s the end of the world!
TSX up another 319 points this morning. What’s that mean slevin?
Pete, it means it’s up by 300 points Only another 5000 to go!! Awww, but wait it just dropped like a rock to 10,220. This sucks for me, I’m heavy in RIM, BCE, some drilling companies and chinese telecom.
But really Pete, this is irrelevant. If you knew anything about the subject you wouldn’t even attempt to judge the overall picture by what’s happening on one day. Investors who think like that are liberated from their capital in short order.
http://freechart.globeinvestor.com/servlet/charting?chart_type=png&lang=EN&chart_style=stock_price_volume&period=INTRA&listing_id=116721&comp_listing_1=&comp_listing_2=&comp_listing_3=&avg_1=&avg_2=
GlobeInvestor has some interesting stories. A melange of good news and bad. A cute story about Steven Harper’s mom trying to give optimistic sound bytes for Canadian seniors and a story about a whole bunch of people in Alberta who have been wiped out.
globeinvestor.com
If you knew anything about the subject you wouldn’t even attempt to judge the overall picture by what’s happening on one day.
Oh, so a short term fluctuation in the stock markets ISN’T an indicator of what’s happening in the stock market? So the three day plunge that erased 5000 points shouldn’t be looked at either then. Slevin, I know enough about the subject to tell you that the sub-prime mortgage crisis has been happening for TWO YEARS and the economy hasn’t entered recession. All of the sudden, wall street gets the jitters, and a bunch of imaginary money disappears from a bunch of stocks. And you’re here trying to tell me that THAT is a sure indicator we’re going into recession, but a subsequent return of some of that imaginary money doesn’t mean anything?
Pete- The TSX is currently down 150 points. There’s no such thing as knowing that your going into a recession, you’ll only know once your there. Sub prime has definitely been going for two years. The money isn’t imaginary, more so if you bought in recently. I’m guessing the US will pick up a bit, but the fit will really hit the shan when the all the debts taken to pay for that ridiculous war of ego are called and then the next administration finds the real enemy is in Afghanistan and Pakistan so they heat that war up in the hope of steaming up the economy the same way Iraq did.
(did I get your attention)
Pete- The TSX is currently down 150 points. There’s no such thing as knowing that your going into a recession, you’ll only know once your there. Sub prime has definitely been going for two years. The money isn’t imaginary, more so if you bought in recently. I’m guessing the US will pick up a bit, but the fit will really hit the shan when the all the debts taken to pay for that ridiculous war of ego are called and then the next administration finds the real enemy is in Afghanistan and Pakistan so they heat that war up in the hope of steaming up the economy the same way Iraq did.
(did I get your attention)
I’ll take your last entry as an admission that a drop in the stock market does not, in fact, indicate a recession.
By the way, the money IS imaginary, in the same sense that a $2 Lotto 6-49 ticket is “potentially” a $10million winning ticket. If you don’t cash your stocks in when they’re trading at $100, there’s a chance that 5 minutes later they’re worth nothing. Anyone that expects the stock market to be a safe investment is a fool. When a rumor of Steve Jobs having a heart attack can wipe BILLIONS of dollars off the market value of Apple, you begin to realize that stock values ARE largely imaginary. It’s not worth anything until you have the money in your hand.
Pete- All good and correct points, but the money is a hell of a lot less imaginary when you’ve just put it in.
But we’re straying from the point. I was originally ridiculing you for calling a 200 point increase an upswing.
Then you foolishly said “TSX up another 319 points this morning. What’s that mean slevin?”
Apparently it means your an idiot and worthy of ridicule to think that commenting on hourly changes is meaningful.
And supposing if it did, the TSX just closed 456 POINTS DOWN, making you a total idiot.
So stop being so optimistic dammit, don’t you know the sky is falling? You should be freaking out, the world is charging headlong into economic doom. Mcain will win, he’ll drop dead during his inauguration, Palin will be the president, she’ll nuke Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan and North Korea, she’ll have Bradley vehicles lined up from Lethbridge to Fort McMurray (for our own protection) and when the dust settles India and China will rule the world. It’ll be alright though, we’ll make our livings manufacturing packaged plastic garbage for them.
(btw- (no sarc) thanks for being one of the few to lead with a positive attitude. Keep it up, don’t let us pessimists drag you down)
sL