Lumber is limit down once again. It has been falling now for two months in a very 'non-housing-recovery'-like manner [4]. Of course, when Lumber prices are rising, everything is bullish and it merely serves to confirm the exuberance and bias to optimism that we should all have. However, just like the Baltic Dry Index, when it's falling it is a bullish sign that the market is over-supplied in anticipation of good things to come. With Lumber's two-month lead over stocks signaling the equity market may well be a little ahead of itself, it seems the supply-demand balance is off in the construction materials business (which one is off - supply or demand) but have no fear, just as with the Baltic Dry, it will come back if we just keep hoping. Or did the actions of a central-bank inspire confidence once again in the 'wrong' industry and spark another mal-investment boom?
The Baltic Dry - now meaningless (if we build it, they will come... at some point, we promise, Bernanke said!!)...
[5]
as a leading Lumber futures price is now ignored by 'market' reality too...
[6]
Charts: Bloomberg