Bending the Third Rail
Because We Should, We Can, We Do
Friday, November 17, 2006
Ouch
If you're in the "housing" industry, you're still searching for the floor:

Barry Ritholtz:
The October 06 Housing Starts were the weakest since July 2000, with Starts down 27% from the same period a year ago.

At present, the Housing situation will exert a much greater drag on Q4 GDP -- even more of a drag than the negative 1.1% of Q3.

Bloomberg quoted Phillip Neuhart, an economist at Wachovia, who said: "This is a shocking number. The market is going to remain weak well into next year.''
The magnitude of what's happening is astounding. Remember, interest rates are still under 6%. We've had times when interest rates were much much higher. Obviously the speculative bubble has popped with liquidity moving into the stock market. Wonder how long until that begins to deflate? If the housing problem spills into consumer spending, watch out for that landing Mr. Economy!

Here's a little historical perspective on housing starts:


Yaaaoooowzers

H/T The Big Picture for graphs.
Written at 2:28 PM by Greyhair.
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