http://www.zerohedge.com/article/sprott-wither-green-shoots
The banking sector isn’t the only equity space that confounds us – the housing stocks are as equally absurd. Despite what you may have heard from your local real estate agent, the fundamentals for US housing are looking dismal. Ever since the tax credits have rolled off, new home sales are now running at 300,000 on a seasonally-adjusted annual rate (“SAAR”), representing a new all time low this past May. For comparison, this is down from an all time high of 1,389,000 new home sales made in July of 2004.3 Reading this, you may expect the home builder stocks to have performed poorly. But no, not in this market!
[..] from the day that Bernanke first saw his ‘green shoots’, the home builders index appreciated by 47% to June 30, 2010, peaking at 104% on April 23rd – all while new home sales were down 14% over the same time period on a SAAR basis.4 ‘The Market is Always Right’, as they say, but it simply can’t be with regard to these stocks. The housing ‘green shoots’ were the product of government initiative, rather than true fundamental improvement, and were thus short term in nature. Now that the government program has ended, the whole sector looks poised to fall apart.
