Housing boom to continue says Forbes economist

[kev374]

This guy must be employed by Gary Watts! Only a fool will be so naive and not be able to see the ominous writing on the wall.

Housing Boom in 2007

Interesting point – he mentions that the economies are accelerating, however he fails to observe that much of that gain is not translating into the paychecks of ordinary citizens but rather going into the pockets of investors/shareholders and greedy corporate executives and CEOs. Companies are aggressively trying to CUT costs to increase their own bottom line not boost employees incomes.

It infuriates me when idiots like Kenneth Fisher are doing this kind of journalism without any sense of reality.

[Diego Mamani]

Kev, thank you for the link. Ken Fisher is not an economist, he’s a money manager who probably makes a living from commissions paid every time his customers’ buy stock or mutual funds. In fact, Fisher is not cheering the housing market per se, but house builder shares (I know, I know, they are related).

My point is that, just as the NAR benefits when houses are bought and sold, Fisher benefits when people invest in shares as part of their portfolio. An economist, he’s not.

[paranoid]

I believe Fisher is just a momentum trader, nothing more than that.

I’m a bear of housing market. But I bought REIT ETF a few months ago and I earned +20% in such a short time. I’m still regreting that I didn’t buy home builder stocks in Q4/06 (I hesitated a lot) and I’m still looking for a good entry point to buy.

I know the REIT and home builder stocks may get trashed one day, but I also know that before that I’ll make some real money. If you don’t understand what I’m saying, you need to read about “contrarian thinking”, you need to look at the Short Interests of these stocks, and the trend of them. All these shorts are being squeezed which will only bring the stocks even higher in the near future. Those shorters may very well be proven to be correct in the final end, but for the moment they are lossing their shirt.

Market is smarter than you think. I’m still waiting the housing market to crash to buy a house.

[dontfollowtheherd]

kev,

Caveat emptor.

A simple Googling of some of these homebuilders Fisher is touting brings mixed results with the majority of it negative. Saying there is no problem won’t make it go away. He’s either too far married into to his positions or is one heck of a palm reader imo. Toll Bros. took it on the chin the other day and their trends are headed lower. There are so many financial lenders setting aside more money to cover upcoming losses in a market they thought was invincible a year ago.

http://news.google.com/news?ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&hl=en&tab=wn&q=toll+brothers+kb+homes+housing+&btnG=Search

[Duck]

FYI,

Ken Fisher is a billionaire who knows a helluva lot more than anyone on this forum.

He doesn’t care if housing tanks or not, but he puts his reputation at stake twice a month verus anonymous posters who are praying for a bust so they can actually buy a house.

[dontfollowtheherd]

Praying for a bust? Hardly. Watching one is more like it. I get more solicitations for Fisher’s list than any others. Not too many billionaires I know try to solicit business as often.

[Diego Mamani]

Welcome to the forum Ken! No need to duck for cover…

[cashman]

Somehow I got on these guys lists and they call me almost every other day. Good thing I have caller ID, so I know when “Fischer Investments” comes up I just don’t answer. I think they run a boiler room.

[Cow_tipping]

Maybe someone show show Mr Fisher the definition of dead cat bounce.
And yes global economy is accelerating, mostly as all the work accelerates its way into India and China.
Wages are deflating, and worse yet, cities used to be high wages and in a real recession cities where people with higher wages worked will start lay off’s while the small towns start hiring and people will move to those towns where they will do the same job for 1/2 the $$ cos their cost of living is now less than 1/2. The last few years, there has been no difference in wages from big cities to small towns. Now we are begining recession. Fasten your belts, this is going to be erratic and painful.
Cool.
Srinath.

[Anonymous]

I’ve been following Ken Fisher since the 1990’s. He’s always advocated a portion of your portfolio be invested overseas in foreign stocks. He’s been right on with that advice. However, his advice since the Nasdaq meltdown in 2000 has been a little spotty. His recent prediction of record stock profits in the 2rd year of a presidential term didn’t live up to expectations. If I didn’t have money in precious metals and oil and comodities, I wouldn’t have been able to turn 24% last year following Fishers advice. He did predict the declines in oil we’re seeing, but I don’t think that’s going to last longterm. He’s never believed there was a R.E. bubble. I can’t say with any authority, but he is a Calif. resident, and he probably owns alot of Calif. real estate (most Calif. people with money do own here). I guess I lost faith in Fisher after the last stock crash, and he was making predictions, and citing government statistics (inflation, employment, productivity, historical trends, etc.) to bolster opinions, and I basically think the governments statictics are bullshit, hedonistically massaged numbers. I still read his columns in Forbes, but I temper everything he says with a bit of skepticism.

[dontfollowtheherd]

Amen brother. The larger their followers it seems the more their obligations/priorities shift from their original business models and schools of thought to preservation of reputation. And sometimes people end up paying a pretty high price in their portfolios. No thanks. I’ll keep doing my own DD as it has served me well to date.

[bob007]

I sympathize with most people on this board.

A lot of things in this world are weird.
1. USA the largest foreign debtor attracts the most capital in the world.

2. Short term interest rates are higher than long term interest rates in the USA. It has been that way for several months.

It is possible that housing bust is confined to South Florida, Arizona, Las Vegas, Central Valley, Southern California.

The basic advice is to buy a house if you can afford it and you want to enjoy it. Otherwise rent what you can afford.

[Author]

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