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Quick Note On NAHB HMI
Certain anonymous bloggers have made odd allegations about the quality content of our recent piece The End Of The End Of The Recession (which for some odd reason has been lumped into the category of a "housing analysis"). It would behoove said blogger to realize there are numerous other components to a holistic report (and the economy) than merely housing (i.e., consumer, business, manufacturing and industry, and many, many more).
It is of course ironic that a blogger should note that "it helps to know your sources" when said blogger is also anonymous. But we are above such petty jabs and in fact are in full agreement with the statement. Which is why as pertains to a specific critique on the NAHB HMI we would like to source the reference:
Indeed - know your sources: Rosie is about as pristine as they come, and we certainly recommend readers choose his opinion over that of any anonymous blogger (inclulding Zero Hedge) any day.
As for charts, we would like to return the favor, and say that when creating pretty representation of data we are merely dilettantes. When one sees gorgeous charts on housing, what can one say, but "Calculated Risk."
As for us, we are content with mediocre data presentation. A much more relevant goal for us is to present the (ugly) data to the general public. Whether it is housing-related or otherwise.
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Tyler, dude, pay no attention to those morons. They deliberately write illogical and factually untrue posts which attack your post, just so they could gain some traffic onto their pathetic little websites .... they are nothing more than Denis Kneals of the ( i hate this word ) blogosphere ... i check, and double check all the facts you use in the posts you write, and in which i have interest in, and there was no mistake whatsoever ... so don't indulge them in their necessity to troll for their living ...
The Cheeky Bastard (thank you for your name, i love saying that) has it right--enemy shills are on the attack!
well thank you very much agrotera, i really am a Cheeky Bastard
awesome!
I mean this with nothing but respect for your work but you hurt your own credibility with this, and sound awfully vulnerable and defensive as a result.
CalcRisk was not trashing your whole presentation nor was he trying to say that housing is the most important element of the economy. He is a housing expert, and he was just noting a couple inaccuracies in your report from his domain. There was an implication that perhaps you were taking the shotgun approach in that report to data, and skewing some of it unintentionally, to support your case.
You didn't counter either of his claims about the difference between a diffusion index and an activity index, nor the difference between residential and non-residential. Instead, you say that you source from Rosie, and not some anonymous blogger. You then defensively make what appears to be an unrelated personal attack (he was not saying your data presentation is poor!).
This loses you major credibility points, and I hope everyone reading this notes the same.
It's not that your work is not very high quality. It is just that when you start loosening your grip on reality to skew everything towards the negative, it becomes hard to believe everything that you say.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/07/28/bernankes-net-worth-takes_n_246512.html
ROR, and this is the man that is the chairman of the largest financial institution on the world
Must have been in bank stocks?
What about his UBS account(s)?
well, taking that into equation, surely puts him on the Forbes list....
HAHA, ROR, just got that. nice
Don't cry for BB; no doubt most banks will already loan against his future GS partnership stake, once he finally steps down from his Fed role.
On a serious note, I am rather concerned about BB's behavior in his recent take-it-to-the-people PR campaign, during which he said, "I did not want to be the Fed Chairman who presided over the second Great Depression. In other words, "It's all about ME, and I'll do whatever it takes to protect my own legacy, logic and prudence be damned".
A desperate, ego-driven single individual should not have his finger on the financial nuclear trigger. The BS explosion at the Fed says things have already reached critical mass.
Very good point about BB and it leads to a larger point. The Fed does not have the power to produce anything or cure anything, it only has the power to artificially manipulate stuff.
BB thinks that he can just keep playing parlor tricks until the economy reovers. Like a trained monkey.
What happened to the PTJ video?
Did they get you too? If so, that was Q.U.I.C.K!
I still have this link, but I haven't tried it.
http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/Trader%20-%20courtesy%20Com...
Hello Children....
Those damn bloggers are at it again. As for me, I chose not to remain anonymous in case anyone wants to call me out on my views. As I mentioned yesterday, people from a little fishing/tourist village in NE will tell you that most of them have never seen it this bad, ever. We are in a depression; it'll just take a few more years for Barry, Larry, Timmy and Benny to fess up and admit it.
What's wrong with having a 'good cop' 'bad cop' tag team of ZH and CR?
Nothing...
Who or what is CR?
calculated risk blog. dude has the BEST graphs. love it
I love how CR now says he went long in late Feb/early March. How convenient. I bet he shorted the dow at 14000 as well and will claim he shorted S&P in september just before the next crash to 400. But then again he is also the world's greatest economist and trader, all in one!
Who is CR?
CR is Bill McBride. He's not all that anonymous:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_McBride_(blogger)
I think he was being a little tongue in cheek in the post in question, and, even if he wasn't, was merely picking nits. He raked major media outlets over the coals for misrepresenting Case-Shiller data, and mentioned two niggling errors in the ZH/Rosie paper that did nothing to undermine its thesis.
Please, everyone, stop shooting. You're all on the same side.
+1
CR & ZH are my favourite US sources of economic info. Read the two together and you get a very good balance IMHO.
If McBride was tongue and cheek than let him publically admit to it. For now I encourage all Zero Hedge regulars to NOT give this guy traffic.
ZH is far and away the most relevant and important source on the internet to know what the hell is REALLY going on.
Let's keep it that way through solidarity.
If McBride wants to come out and say he respects the incredibly vital work that Tyler is doing under his chosen pen name than great. Until then McBride is just another wannabe distraction from the mission here.
I have to agree on CR. I read his headlines nearly everyday, but that's all they usually are...headines. He rarely does original content and in many cases throws a one line comment in on what ever has been copy and pasted into the post. The charts are nice, the data is relevant, but there is no substance to the vast majority of his postings...I'd rather just read the orginal article instead of a snipet and a comment...ZH and Mish are a much better combo IMO (and no it's not humble!)
It would be one thing if he was an arrogant bastard who was always pumping himself up... but give the guy a break, this is the first time I have ever heard him talk about his investments publicly, and it is doubtful that he is lying.
Tyler,
When u take to many red ones, u need to remember to edit.
Not to be a petty bitch, "what can one can say"...?
sorry, channeling my internal amadeus.
C'est la verite!
Grammar Nazi
AS long as it is not verboten, mein herr.
:-)
normally I wouldn't say this, because you have quite the level head in your comments, and you always make sense. but, eh well, petty bitch!
"I love how CR now says he went long in late Feb/early March. How convenient."
-------
I've been reading CR's site for the past three years. He is consistently circumspect about misleading comments and has a phenomenal amount of integrity (particularly in our current trash culture).
I can't prove that CR is telling the truth but I'll take his word over just about anyone else's based on his past behavior.
-
Broward Horne
realmeme.com
THere is no purpose served by these "I wuz right" comments whether they are made here, on CR or elsewhere. It's mostly all bullshit and typically the only people who are compelled to make such comments are attempting to compensate for deficiencies elsewhere, so to speak. If you were right, everybody already knows it. If you have to remind them, what's the point?
Clown - Your integrity is certainly in question using the comments section of ZH to draw people to your CV.
who is cr?
it speaks volumes that so many comments are "who is CR"
you folks need to go back to the yahoo message boards.
that does not answer the question. Who is he/she?
It is of course ironic that a blogger should note that "it helps to know your sources" when said blogger is also anonymous.
You probably meant hypocritical as irony doesn't cover this particular dustup. Regardless, CR is not anonymous. A great many people know who he is. He just blogs under CR. He even signs his email correspondence with his name. You'd know that if you tried.
Diffusion indices do not track expansion/contraction. They track self selected perceptions of a subject. As an example Homebuilders that go out of business stop reporting and would thus bias an index higher even if everyone else reporting were to report lower outlooks.
i am sure that a great many people know a great many things. and who knows, if you tried i may sign my email as well.
as for your last point, feel free to let Rosie know.
I didn't quote him. You did. Clean up your blog now that you understand sentiment bias a little better.
alas, I am worried that i will lose valuable constant readers such as yourself if i do not stick to my own voice.
Marla is not going to let you sign an email to a stranger. Admit it.
I refuse to even pretend to know what Marla will and will not let me do.
He is anonymous on his blog. I'm sure many know who is behind Tyler Durden including Mr. Rosenberg. If a guy's name doesn't appear on his blog, he is an anonymous blogger. Mr. McBride's doesn't appear on his site. In addition, if more than half the respondents view sales as bad or negative, I think you can pretty much count on a contraction. Yes, I understand that such a atatistic can be skewed due to builder size but at a number of 26 I think a contraction is a safe bet.
what is the url to cr's site?
calculatedriskblog dot com
For those of you that do not know CR is Calculated Risk. Google it.
"Calculated Risk, which gets about 75,000 visitors a day, was started in early 2005 by a retired technology executive named Bill McBride. The housing market was soaring, but Mr. McBride sensed that the industry was about to peak, and he posted articles and data that made his case."
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/01/business/01tanta.html
Even a broken clock is right twice a day.
tyler-
your comments section used to be full of bright folks.
they all left, because you jumped the shark.
thanks for commenting.
that's funny shit TD!
Crap TD, maybe you need to cancel anonymous posts (and force me to sign up). Ignore the BS comments and ignore useless media jabs.
You are a ruthless mofo who somehow finds all kinds of insight out of crap that I can hardly muster the strength to analyze. You crank out more insight in a day than I can even keep up with - let alone being the one to read and research and write about (ok you have help but still).
All this about new servers and websites and "debates" with babbling buffoons is just going to slow down your main mission: making people think and exposing the theft of a nation.
STAY THE COURSE!
You know what they say TD:
Never argue with an idiot. They'll drag you down then beat you with experience
Weak sauce. NAHB's index is a diffusion index, yes, but it measures sentiment not output like other diffusion indices (e.g. ISM) do.
Therefore it doesn't indicate 'contraction' like you and Rosenberg say. Unless 'more poor than good sentiment' = 'contraction'.
http://www.nahb.org/generic.aspx?sectionID=134&genericContentID=532
It's an inference drawn from the sentiment. Not sure too many builders will be expanding when they view sales as bad negative......
Exactly. I don't know what the huge difference in terminology is, whether one is derived from the other if they are arguing for the same thing. Its like taking a derivative of e^x or second derivative of e^x, both are e^x.
Calculated Risk is not written by anonymous.
CR is Bill McBride. Those who didn't know that learned it by reading the NY Times obituary of Doris Dungey "Tanta" (please read it):
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/01/business/01tanta.html
Here's what Bill just wrote about the ZH report (as a side note to a longer post):
Not to just pick on the MSM reporting. I was sent (by several readers) a housing analysis yesterday. It was some sort of weird mash up between the excellent David Rosenberg and some blogger. The charts are great, but the analysis is sometimes inaccurate. The "research" made comments like this for the NAHB HMI: “Sales outlook is stuck at 26, and anything under 50 is a contraction”. Not correct. The NAHB index is a sentiment indicator and doesn’t indicate contraction. Any number under 50 indicates more builders view sales as poor than good. See this chart - the index moves with new home sales and housing starts. And another example: "Architectural billings Index slipped five points last month to 37.7 - a sign residential construction is just bouncing along bottom". The ABI is primarily for non-residential construction.
TD -
You seem to be catching some crap - some deserved, but mostly not. You do a really sharp job and anyone who thinks it is easy to create such a broad stream of generally useful commentary EVERY DAY needs to try it for a while.
Everybody gets things wrong, right, and lots in between.
Your success is merited and I applaud your efforts to tell one side of the story. Your work is a persistently useful part of every thoughtful investor's effort to create a durable mosaic of actionable investment ideas.
Keep at it.
i hope that all of it is deserved. people are not insulted unless they feel threatened.
there is enough conformity in the blogosphere.
Indeed.
ZH and CR are my first two reads every morning. Hope this doesn't turn into some kind of grudge thing b/w the two.
This is a "Finantial War" and it's far from over.
Bernanke was hired to create a depression and not to prevent one.
Tyler and Crew:
As a sign of gratitude and appreciation for your outstanding work, lets just say that an insider outsider will be making a donation.
Yes, I work for "the" man, for now. However, I have a whistle that will drop people to their knees. I hope ZeroHedge is ready to be famous.
G ood day S ir
17589...thank you for your note. TD cannot do it all without the help of folks like yourself and as has been said, the only way to disassemble a corrupt machine is from the inside. Good luck to you and please communicate.
17589: Assuming your post is legit then like, say, Eddie Van Halen, you rock. Three summers ago I spent an entire day with a GS partner on a buddy's vessel, the Dude was a relative of a long-time trusted friend. Could not wait to pow wow on things like, "how credible is VaR anyway?" and maybe if things went well, "what the fuck is it exactly that you do?" He was like an Obama staffer, bobbing and weaving like a practiced Sophist, never answering a damed thing (besides being a wallflower who was more interested in going below to crash than celebrating the outdoors with a few or more tall ones). Since then a nephew who interned there last year and ZH have been about the only ones for further insights. Pray tell your story.
as the poster-dude above said; if you are for real, than sir you will do a great favor to all the people in the world. and if the information that you will, hopefully, provide is indeed jaw-dropping and most importantly true, many many many people will hold your line if the giant bloodsucking vampire squid tries to suck you dry .... and, sir, you must have one big pair of balls, and a abnormally balanced sense between what is your duty and what is your job ... again kudos to you ...
I'm totally hot for you already, sexy! ;)
To be effective on one side of the fence one needs to acquire facility through operating on the other. There is much to be said for personal knowledge of the flavor that forms the basis of perceptive action and it is nearly impossible to discern this or effectively act upon it without first hand knowledge.
It takes commitment to attempt to accomplish this task. Remember to be prepared and expect the unexpected.
Stay sharp.
The Banks in their efforts to survive, I mean thrive will continue to trash the Real Estate Market for years.
City governments are slow to respond and will not reduce fees to build.
Labor is down, materials are going down. It is still cheaper to buy a Foreclosure fixer or regular fixer in all the biggest states by homes sales.
Land is cheap but it cost too much to put a home on it. You can't sell it for what you built it.
We need a good earhquake,fire, flood or fireball from the heavens to clear out all the property built over the past 50 years.
CR just wanted an excuse to disclose that he's been long since late Feb/early March. Good for him! SUCH humility. You just don't see that kind of humility these days. Thanks for the SRS memories, gentle friend... "Let the cliff-diving in commercial real estate begin!"
Tanta Vive. She wrote under that pseudonym first as a commenter, then as a co-writer with CR.
Anyone who followed from early on knew that something was seriously wrong when she nearly stopped posting.
It was only later that her real name came out and the world discovered what quite a few big-time journalists figured out: we're getting our arses handed to us by some "anonymous blogger."
I'll echo what BH said: CR is someone with integrity as far as I can tell, even when/if I disagree with his positions.
If we're going to have forced education, I couldn't hope but that ZH and CR are the two main sources of economics news in the curriculum, comments included.
It's so humbling to learn so much from so many every day at both sites.
As he says, best to all. I say that to those here and there, crossovers included. This is bigger than some may want to admit, this web-reporting thingy.
Tyler, is there a way to have a RobotTrader Update Sidebar on your website? You can post his daily evening updates, and I think it will be enjoyed by many many people. He does add a uniquely entertaining perspective on the market action. Please, please please?!
Others, please chime in if you agree with me.
second
Agree wholeheartedly. RobotTrader is fantastic, and should be a featured commentator.
Sorry, Robot needs to get get his own thing going, if he so choses. I am sure he would not want to be accused of riding TD's coat tails.
Why not use the forum.
sorry to be a voice of dissent.
And it's official- after 393 trading days, the two hundred day simple moving average on the S&P 500 is now trending upwards.
You know, that pesky line that was acting as a magnet to price throughout June and early July until I "tweeted" the "problem" to Tim and Ben, who then powered-down the selling robots, sparking the most violent rally in quite sometime.
2 days doesn't make a trend. But if it is going to turn back down, it does so, on average, in 35 days.
The NAHB/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (2007 - Current)
A rating of 50 indicates that the number of positive or good responses received from the builders is about the same as the number of negative or poor responses. Ratings higher than 50 indicate more positive or good responses.
http://www.nahb.org/generic.aspx?genericContentID=529§ionid=872&chan...
Blinder! Michelle Caruso refied by Obama plan!
Even DK is appalled.
CR,
I believe ZH's report was 72 pages long with comprehensive analysis from top down. I would appreciate it in the future if you would come up with a report of your own that isn't longer than a twitter posting. Also seeing that this is the largest issue you have with the piece I would consider that a home run.
What I find odd about your "campaign" is that you went after him for a few sentences and two graphs that you didn't agree with (which is fine it is a free country) but you showed how narrow minded you are with regard to the big picture. This is what I think the main point of the article was not a housing analysis. Interesting that you agreed with his view point in general but you disagreed how he came to the conclusion.
So for that I give you your props ...you met your goal of getting a bounce in your traffic but in my mind you made yourself look like a idiot for those of us that are smart enough to see your response as nothing more than another ad campaign.
Oh and I have been a long time follower of your site as well so no I am not picking on you...I believe it was you that started this whole thing but I thought I would weigh in as I was disappointed. Finally might I render you a bit of advice for the future, please be careful on over estimating your intellectual capabilites and analysis before you go after someone WAY smarter and harder working than yourself (IMO of course)...I believe in constructive critism but poor commentary and pointless jabs make you look like a fool.......SB
Summary. CR has traffic envy.
Yea, and he is not the only one, as evidenced by other comments. it's funny that some commenters think that lies will fly by unnoticed, and somehow accepted. I think another strategy that this type of individual may take, it to go back and pollute older posts where there is no action to dispute their comments--Tyler and Marla, i hope you keep an eye out for that, and close comments after a while if too many enemy shills attack.....
I assume you posted this over THERE too...
Hi Tyler,
I'm just going to fly on vacation... I'm french.... (sorry, nobody is perfect...). Do you you know what that means??? 3 weeks of vacation.... Trust me, I will definitely enjoy those (last??) vacations.... I will be still on line. I believe that education of pavlov-citizens is a duty, not a right. We shall fight.... Hope to hear a lot from you... Revolution takes time... a very long process... just hedge your mind... with zerohedge. Hope to read a lot from you.
TD - The tone in your post suggests you feel you are above being criticized. Don't let your ego get in your way. This is exactly what Goldman wants, that's how they take down their enemies. Remember Elliot Spitzer...
CalculatedRisk is a great blog, and he knows his stuff. Just accept criticism, stay humble, and move on. You were wrong, so what. No need to start a war with CR, it doesn't behoove you and it's just another distraction against your real enemies.
you can not kill or trash and idea ... ideas do not bleed, ideas do not have an ego or a face; they just represent themselves as concept worth studying and exploring, and you can not kill that .... and BTW we are ALL Tyler Durden, but some of us are more Tyler Durden than others ... but still we are, on average, Tyler Durden ...
No. He doesn't want to be summarily dismissed based on a mostly irrelevant (in the big picture) detail.
CR's way of communicating was sickeningly condescending.
I don't think I've ever heard TD sounds above being criticized in all these months--
i wonder if anyone else here hears TD's tone the way Anony is characterizing it?
No. And TD is being too nice.
Well I'm not.
CR' "friendly fire" attack was totally unwarranted, unprofessional and simply lame. I smell jealousy at the upstart, TD.
Come on CR, TD can't help it if he's hot and you're um...NOT.
Not sure a whole lot of shovels are going in the ground if the majority of builders view sales as bad or negative......
Fine, but there are other direct metrics to illustrate it. Sentiment indicators tend to be erratic at times.
Durden/Rosenberg missed that little but important detail. That's all. Will we see a correction from them? I'm sure Rosenberg cares more about his reputation and he may do something, if alerted to the situation.
But for those who expect Bill McBride to take ZH's bait, you may have to way a very long time.
"But for those who expect Bill McBride to take ZH's bait, you may have to way a very long time."
:-)))
How does it feel to see the world upside down? Who exactly do you think exactly baited whom???
Don't confuse petty taunts for critical analysis please.
Obviously you are not a regular reader of CR. They have always been striving to correct the record and whatever passes as financial reporting. In this case the thing that would have caught anybody's attention was having Rosenberg's name associated with it. It's really up to Rosenberg to clear his involvement and the interpretation of the data.
But CR offered a valid criticism of a very narrow part of that Durden/Rosenberg report. The "TD" fellow won't even acknowledge that he got valid criticism. That says a lot more than any further response you may get from McBride.
McBride, is that you?
Oh McBride, you are so clever, Almost didn't recognize you!
And of course if the stimulus package turns out to be nothing but a liberal give-away with no actual constructive or stimulating projects.
Oh...wait. Never mind.
"Rosie is about as pristine as they come..."
Pristine? Indeed he may be, though I suspect that more than one thought Madoff to be "pristine" too (both haling from the same industry as they do). I want to believe you. How exactly would I go about determining if my money manager and its employees are also pristine? Is there some quantitative metric, like VaR of character or foresight or something?
Thanks, sincerely.
Markopoulos ia available for hire.....
That is fucking brilliant Alexander, comparing Rosie to Madoff.
You are a real fucking genius, really great comparison there.
You have really made a terrific point there.
Way to go, ace!
Ah, the price you must pay for getting famous, -ly notorious! As content is the MOST important. And thank you commentors that help us understand it! As far as that report, totally clear, pass the vodka pls!
I think the sentence "and some blogger" says it all. Sad and a tad pathetic :-)
For the record I stopped reading CR after a few months as the lack of true news and original analysis made it a waste of my time. No wonder they feel threatened by ZH. No contest. No comment.
You must have been reading something different. But that's your loss, I'm sure.
I noticed it to, it started to develop a questionable agenda.
Interesting that all the commentary on this "feud" is done on this site and not on theirs, I guess everyone is here including their faithful! Ha, ha.
I second the poster above who said that CR and ZH were the first two stops of the day. Mine as well.
I'm a big fan of both. Both appear to be excellent with data. For those of you who don't know CR, and I'm stunned by how many people here don't, try making it a regular stop before you judge the site. It's a great one.
Again- as was said above- both CR and ZH will have their rare moments when they get something wrong. Accept it like a grown up and move on. I know that's not the ZH modus operandi- and I like the attitude as much as anyone - but CR is hardly a sell-side echo, and CR was here to help those of us on the buyside long before ZH existed. LONG before. And he still provides some of the best analysis of housing/construction data out there.
When McBride develops a respect for Zero Hedge, with quite five times the traffic as CR, THEN I will gladly check the site out.
For now I will keep my little piece of the internet traffic pie at zero hedge and I recommend every single person here to do the same.
McBride is going to have to work a lot harder to earn that extra five times multiple in traffic that zero hedge commands.
Your presentation was really good, and the only difference between that and similar presentations produced by some of the big investment firms, is that you added opinion in a personal way, and the investment houses, often speak in a more detached manner...but that doesn't mean that your data presentation was mediocre! If we didn't want your opinion, we probably wouldn't be here. Thank you!
cr has nice graphs and a good sight. But there is really no analysis per se to speak of. He talks a lot about the housing bubble and prices and the diagnosis ends there using the static metrics that giot us here. His diagnosis of the credit markets is to look at all the metrics that are being manufactured, libor etc. CR it seems to me makes the same mistake that the Lehman caused this debacle crowd makes. That is to say mistaking symptom for cause. CR is on board with the Bernanke reflate mania per it being the best of the worst.ZH, Hussman etc get it spot on. Call me when they start liquidating the bank debt.
I am a central asian, with no training on finance/economics. There are 3 sites i visit every day, religiously: mish, cr and zh (not necessarily in the same order). I would not be where i am today without their insightful analysis. Thanks for all your hard work, Tyler. Ordinary people, like me, appreciate very much your efforts, and please do not be discouraged by anonymous and envious commenters.
best wishes!
CR is on the daily viewing list. We're all on the same team for the most part. Nitpicking amongst bloggers is tedious at best and annoying unless the charges are rich, then let the fireworks begin.
except for the fact that CR is pretty useless in the past few months, since they started to suck the government tit and drank the kool-aid presented in the graphs that they get from the FED and other agencies ... recently they just describe what is on the graph and call it an analysis ... on the second hand Tyler uses far more better approach and actually reads the metric and the data, then interprets it and forms the most logical and truthful synthesis ... pure Descartian approach, which i admire deeply, being that i wrote one of my thesis on Descartian epistemology ... and clearly you can see that approach in Tyler's maxim; DOUBT EVERYTHING! ... remember DUBITO ERGO COGITO, COGITO ERGO SUM !!!
Tyler, obvious your work is appreciated. Your rebuttle shines even more light on your attackers' ignorance. Don't let them distract you too much.
add one more to the masses who greatly admires both TD and CR - I've learned a ton from both of these people - Thx to both for all that you do and I hope the offer made above for some real 'huge news' turns out for you TD.. you deserve it.
gc
It sounds as if a few economists want to haggle over very minute differences in meaning (Ben the Bald & Alexander Supertramp seem to have agendas).
Stating there is a difference between "sales outlook" and "sentiment" from the builders confidence survey is not being able to see the forest for the trees- the result or meaning of both is the same - we are staring into the abyss. As T.D. stated this was from Rosie, I don't think he was "wrong" and I also would agree that he appears to possess truthiness.
My apologies if you are both levered up on real estate, house flippers, or part of a CRE company. And no, I don't need a home or a loan but thanks.
"... some blogger..."
What an ass. Where the fudge did that come from?
CR is a gateway blogger to the really good, original stuff from ZH, Mish and Denninger. CR is way too conservative and limited in his vision and thinking, and only correctly called what he did because he was offended by the obvious excesses. It wasn't thru great thinking.
It will be Mish and the attitude from ZH and Denninger that brings down GS and its stranglehold on this country, not the play it safe crap from CR.
Was compelled to sign up here so that my anonymous comment doesn't get dismissed...
CR's mention of your report seemed quite petty and superficial; and then to you refer to you as 'some blogger' when I am quite sure knows exactly who you are... seems a bit disrespectful to me. I love the fact that you volleyed it back over the net... someone just posted a comment about your response on his site.
""I love how CR now says he went long in late Feb/early March. How convenient.""
BS, i ve been there for over two years, Calculated Risk never takes absolute views and always separates facts, historical data from his opinions. As of his opinions, he was one of the first to call OIL 150-200 bull shit last year, he called the upper ladder RE would face trouble as well as low end, he called unemployment to be much higher than stress tests assumed, he called CRE avalanche, etc. Also most of the CR vs. Zero hedge comments are by ANON's, it seems like someone is trying to divide & conquer, have CNBC interns become smarter? (fat chance, must be the corporate player, LoL)
Actually I believe it was McBride's lack of respect that started this in my mind and that is precisely why I will not provide him with any traffic and I strongly encourage everybody here at Zero Hedge to ignore this guy until he learns some respect.
As a long-time reader of CR and similar big fan of ZH since its been around, I was very disappointed with the CR post. The "some blogger" reference was either extremely petty, or if taken at face-value, suggested that CR was not as well-read as I thought.
Maybe to make up for it CR could add a link to ZH on his sidebar.
Regards,
Bonesetter Brown
http://trendroom.wordpress.com/2009/07/24/nahb-housing-index-as-leading-...
Seems to me you guys agree on more than you disagree on, regardless.
Both blogs rock.
Tyler,
Very recently, it does seem that a number of anonymous posters are posting comments that really don't relate at all to anything here, and it is alittle confusing.
Looks like you guys are getting attacked by some nonsense. Would the rating system help?
With all the BS out there, we need to stick together.
Exactly...and right now 'sticking together' means not patronizing McBride's site with gawker volume until he openly proves that he understands the part about bloggers sticking together whether they use a pen name like mark twain or a real name like McBride.
Tyler's mission is a thousand times more relevant and important than anything McBride ever dreamed of.
Tyler is shaking up the establishment and exposing their filth.
So yeah we all gotta stick together with Tyler.
CR is the real deal, not some loser sniping. They preserve their credibility by using accurate data and leaving conclusions to the reader. You are off base here.
Hi Tyler,
Know your source indeed !
This is the original source of NAHB HMI (accessible by a simple google)
http://www.nahb.org/generic.aspx?sectionID=134&genericContentID=532
It is a sentiment index, and 50 is NOT a threshold between expansion and contraction like the PMI because the question that is asked is not "is the market growing or shrinking ?" but "is the market Good or Bad ?".
Bottom line is that CR is right on this.
This being said, I understand that you could find "It was some sort of weird mash up between the excellent David Rosenberg and some blogger. " as an offensive statement.
It is indeed a petty jab that uses easy rhetorical device (Rosenberg is presented as "excellent" and the blogger is just a diminutive "some").
I suggest your settle this civilly with CR in private. You are indeed playing for the same team and internal bickering is counter productive.
I would add that you are quite complement to each other. You take risks in disclosing information even if you don't fully get the whole picture, whereas CR is less adventurous buttoned down site.
Personally, I use ZH as a teaser that prompts me to explore topics, so I don't mind if there is a bit of approximation here and there.
Nothing wrong with a little ball busting every now and again as it keeps everyone focused on the task at hand.
Unity of effort, remember?
Now move out....