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Just eleven days away …
The New York Hard Assets Investment Conference is just eleven days away! The schedule has been pretty much finalized - the important parts are excerpted below:
Click to enlarge
The conference starts on Monday, but I won’t be speaking until Tuesday. I’m on a panel at 8:30 hosted by Al Korelin - Causes and Consequences of the Credit Crisis.
I have a pretty good idea whose name will come up.
Then everyone will sit and listen to Dennis Gartman talk about oil and gold. Since the long-time newsletter writer famously announced that he’d sold all his gold a week or two ago, it should be interesting to hear what he has to say to an audience that likely hasn’t sold theirs.
Attendees will hopefully be cheered back up again by Dr. Martin Murenbeeld who will offer some bullish thoughts on the metal.
At 10:30, I’ll be conducting one of four “Masterclasses” that run in parallel for a half-hour. The title of my presentation is “Buy the Stocks, or Buy the Commodities?” and, this week, I feel fortunate to have been kept busy preparing it so as not to have too much idle time to think about the latter.
You can still register at no charge if you are interested in attending. Click here for info.
As reader Chet reminded me via email earlier today, on its current trajectory, gold will be about $750 by the time the conference kicks off.
Thanks Chet.
To learn more about investing in natural resources using commonly traded ETFs, stocks, and mutual funds, see this description at Iacono Research . Or, sign up for a free trial .
Do You Think Your House Is Tiny? Ok…Look At This One!
TORONTO (Reuters Life!) - To exit through the back door of Toronto’s “smallest house,” first fold the Murphy bed back into the wall; it takes up the entire seven-foot width of the bedroom.
Built in 1912, the pint-size “Little House” features one bedroom, a kitchen with folding table and chairs, a living room and a full, […]
From boom to bust in the motherlode
It was just a couple years ago that newspapers all across the land were full of stories about how wealthy we had all become, largely due to rising home prices. Nobel prize winning economists were even justifying the zero percent savings rate by marveling at how much higher asset prices had moved.
Now that home prices are in a virtual free fall, the nation’s newspapers are filled with stories of lament , anger , and disillusionment and you don’t hear too much about the typical homeowner’s balance sheet anymore.
Well, at least not about their balance sheets improving.
A story in today’s USA Today noted the soaring number of unpaid utility bills and, here in the Sierra foothills in California, yesterday’s local paper had a one-two punch on the front page - soaring food and energy prices along with steps the local utility company is taking to deal with the current wave of foreclosures.
It’s too bad that the blog name Boom2Bust is already taken - that would have been a good successor to the name at the top of the page you are now reading (no, a name change is not being contemplated in the near-term, but someday the name will probably change).
From The Union Democrat - the “Leading Newspaper of the Motherlode since 1854″ - comes a report of sticker shock at the local grocery store and problems at the food bank:
Food prices surging with gas
Published: April 24, 2008By JAMES DAMSCHRODER
Surging gas prices are depleting wallets not only at the pump, but also at the grocery store checkout counter.
The cost of food is climbing faster than it has in 17 years and the No. 1 culprit is the surge in fuel prices, especially record high diesel prices, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
…
Amador-Tuolumne Community Action Agency food bank director Lee Kimball said that, over the last five years, the food bank has suffered on multiple fronts: a rise in food costs, a decrease in government and corporate donations and an increase of those needing assistance.The same amount of money will purchase 41 percent less food today than it would have five years ago, Kimball said.
Over the last five years, there’s been a 41 percent decrease in government food donations and a 36 percent decrease in corporate food donations at the ATCAA food bank.
This is compounded by an 88 percent increase in households that are reliant on ATCAA food bank services over the last five years.
“People from the middle class, for the first time, are having to ask for help,” Kimball said. “Two people recently were in here crying from embarrassment because they’ve never had to ask for help in their lives.”
And, as if to reinforce how things are rapidly changing for the worse, this story was also on yesterday’s front page:
CCWD ponders foreclosure aid for customers
Published: April 24, 2008
By HOYT ELKINS
Calaveras County Water District directors Wednesday tried to decide if it is in the best interest of the district and its ratepayers to offer fee waivers or other forms of relief to customers facing foreclosure on their homes.
Weighing in on the issue were the district’s finance director, its customer service supervisor and its general counsel, all of whom agreed a carefully worded resolution would be needed to enact relief, and a carefully crafted form would be required to apply for it.
At issue is whether current district policy makes homeowners in the foreclosure process eligible for suspension or abatement of water service, or if the district could provide assistance in the form of waiver of fees or penalties.
Customer Service Supervisor Douglas Wilson told the board that 159 homes served by the district have gone to foreclosure between January 2007 and the middle of this month. He identified three types of foreclosure customers: those trying to save their homes; those who live in their homes, don’t pay the mortgage and eventually abandon their homes, and, finally, those who have left their homes and are not paying the mortgage.
Among the first two types, Wilson said, a high percentage continue to pay for water service even though they are not paying the mortgage. For those not paying their water and wastewater bills, fees and penalties continue to accrue until they eventually go to collection. Wilson said only about half of the money owed is recovered by the district, and also noted that liens against the property can take years to collect.
We weren’t here at the height of the boom in 2005 - maybe it’s worth looking up some past issues to see what the front page looked like back then.
A reminder about subscription rates
Just a reminder that rates for the companion investment website Iacono Research will increase next week (see last week’s post for details). Those signing up for free trials before then will be eligible for the current low subscription rate for the duration of their 30-day free trial period.
We are off to Yosemite for the day to check out the waterfalls and the wildlife so any requests for free trials or new subscriptions will not be handled until later in the day.
To learn more about investing in natural resources using commonly traded ETFs, stocks, and mutual funds, see this description at Iacono Research . Or, sign up for a free trial .
NEW U.S. MONTHLY HOUSE PRICE INDEX ESTIMATES 0.6 PERCENT PRICE
For Immediate Release
April 22, 2008
NEW U.S. MONTHLY HOUSE PRICE INDEX ESTIMATES 0.6 PERCENT PRICE
INCREASE BETWEEN JANUARY AND FEBRUARY
WASHINGTON, DC – U.S. home prices rose approximately 0.6 percent on a seasonallyadjusted basis between January and February, according to OFHEO’s new monthly House Price Index. For the 12 months ending in February, U.S. prices fell
2.4 percent. Since its peak in April 2007, the index is down 3.1 percent.
The OFHEO monthly index is calculated using purchase prices of houses backing
mortgages that have been sold to or guaranteed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. The
index, introduced in OFHEO’s fourth quarter 2007 House Price Index (HPI) report,
provides a timely indicator of house price conditions for the nation and each of the nine Census Divisions. For the nine Census Divisions, seasonally-adjusted monthly price changes from January to February ranged from -0.6 percent in the Mountain Census Division to 2.2 percent in the New England Division.
Changes in the national index, which is constructed as a weighted average of data from the nine Census Divisions, reflect movements in market prices as well as changes in the mix of geographic areas within Census Divisions. Normally changes in the mix are relatively small. However, in February, the share of reported sales volumes rose in states with stronger housing markets, which significantly increased estimated appreciation above what it would have been in the absence of such effects. Holding the weights for each state constant, the national increase would have been only 0.3 percent in February.
Monthly index values and appreciation rate estimates are provided in the table and graph on the following pages. All estimates are seasonally adjusted and, as with OFHEO’s quarterly HPI, will be revised in later releases. As indicated in OFHEO’s fourth quarter 2007 HPI report, quarterly HPI releases will include updated monthly data presented in the same format as the attached table.
For detailed information concerning the new monthly HPI, please see the HPI Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs), at http://www.ofheo.gov/hpi.aspx?Nav=60.
The next release of monthly index data will be included as part of OFHEO’s next quarterly HPI, released May 22, 2008. That release will include quarterly index data through the first quarter of 2008 and will report monthly estimates through March.
Please e-mail ofheoinquiries@ofheo.gov for a printed copy of this report.
###
http://www.ofheo.gov/newsroom.aspx?ID=429&q1=1&q2=None
Mortgage delinquency rates in motion
After figuring out how to create animated .gifs a couple weeks ago, there now seem to be a virtually endless number of good data sets with static graphics to animate.
This one is from data at the Wall Street Journal where they have some pretty cool “mouse-over” features and moving bar charts at the bottom (but no animation).