This weekend I took a drive through coastal Maine and was stunned by two things: the number of homes for sale, and the number of homes where stonework was being erected. It seemed as though the "walls" were going up. Boundaries being delineated. Boarders being defined. Mini fortresses created. Lots of busy masons.
Of course I saw a spec house, too. No, that's not accurate. I went to check on the spec house. I knew it was there; I just wanted to check on its price. A contractor purchased a vacant lot and built a house on it, just like the old days of 2006. The price started at $2.225 million. Now it's $1.85 million. It's a beautiful, gracious looking home, fully landscape by an army of landscapers in a fleet of brand new, gleaming white, fully-branded white trucks. I bet it sells for $895K.
There's nothing like free money to get people to speculate. The problem is, they often speculate badly, creating what economists call malinvestment. It's interesting to see it happening again, although on a much smaller scale. The larger scale seems to be people wanting their investment back. Again, I was stunned at how many homes I saw listed for sale. It seemed like it happened overnight. Maybe I'm viewing it through my own bearish lens, but I wonder if this is the beginning of the dash for cash.
The dash for cash is affecting the asset markets, too. The indices are breaking down, foreign currencies are weakening against the near universally-hated US dollar, and even gold and silver are off their highs amid the growing European debt contagion. The reason is the simple math of self-preservation: assets with gains will be sold.
As for the S&P today, I think we're close to a near-term bottom and will have a bounce back to 1220-1225. With the breakdown of the triangle, I will be a heavy seller of rallies and only a tactical buyer of weakness until proven wrong.
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