2x4caster
@2x4caster
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Mainer🌲 Wood products analyst 🏘️ Macro tourist 📊 Opinions are my own. @Fastmarkets.
Boston, MA via Maine
Joined April 2012
Backwardation in the SYP market is quite the shift from where we were not long ago.
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Don’t worry about the labor market.
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@TheStalwart 🇺🇸 intermediate material cost inflation is rising even as Chinese 🏭 prices are suppressed. The bet is whether manufacturers or retailers are gonna stomach the margin hit. Decoupling (wont help like in 1st term) https://t.co/MbJgUvLJmy
US wholesale intermediate cost momentum (🏭PPI) rising faster than normalised* manufacturing purchasing managers price index (ISM). Costly. *normalised to remove qualitative survey bias
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☹️Hope is not a strategy ▶️"Confused & uninformed tariff policies continue to plague small companies, making long-term planning pointless" ▶️"Conditions remain soft as we continue to miss sales, orders & profits as result of... tariffs" ▶️"...despite beneficial tax policies"
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Here is total housing units per family in the US. "1" is not necessarily the "correct" ratio due to all sorts of special considerations, and the aging population in particular is a factor deserving a lot of thought here, but bottom line is ratio has fallen over the last 25 years.
Housing per person, as @pegobry_en points out, obscures the fact that fewer of our people are children and fewer of our people are married, and so until we fix that, we will need more homes per person.
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“…because Warsh has been a policy hawk his entire life, his newfound dovishness looks very suspect. Powell might sense the same thing, which is why there is a risk of him sticking around. If he does, Warsh would be a very weak Fed Chair.” @RenMacLLC’s Dutta
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Loggers and commercial fishermen. Literally built different in my humble opinion.
A logging contactor who works periodically for me is undergoing chemo for Stage 4 cancer. Throughout , he has not missed a day of work. As he said to me " what else am I going to do-sit at home and feel sorry for myself. " You will never meet a tougher group than loggers.
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US major homebuilders saw closing vols drop -3.2% y/y in Q4 but new 🏘️ contracts rose by 5.9%. Due to 🇺🇸 gvt shutdown (more to come?) we still don't have official #housing starts/sales trends for Nov/Dec. Flying (blind)
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Remember the announced plan for $200bn in MBS purchases from Fannie and Freddie?
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Tough pick for the mortgage rate outlook.
@NickTimiraos My 2cents: Warsh is the worst pick of the four. Least deserving based on track record and will not garner trust from the market (ie higher term premium/steeper curve/higher rates where it counts). Misread by Trump
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"Tariffs aren't feeding through into product prices!"
Aluminum basically used to cost the same in the US as it did in Europe and Japan. No more. https://t.co/tZCRXqX6uV
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The Bloomberg Commodity Index has been going vertical, but energy is not really part of it
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Genuine question here: If this isn't due to the debasement thesis, what is this then?
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BREAKING: Home Depot to cut 800 corporate jobs, require workers back to office full time
ajc.com
Home Depot says it is eliminating about 800 corporate jobs tied to its Vinings headquarters.
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Trump and Bessent have for weeks suggested a Fed announcement is just around the corner. That guidance has slipped so much that some people close to the process have begun to wonder whether the president is looking for something—a committed loyalist with max credibility—he
wsj.com
The president wants someone who will pursue lower interest rates—and who’s credible enough to actually deliver them.
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The lumber market has been on a decent run these last few months. Some seasonality, some rebound after over-correcting and reflecting tariff front-running. Probably approaching what I would consider a more "fundamentals" driven equilibrium.
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Third tier city stuff right here. Patriots are all the way back.
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Few.
I admit, I was wrong to ask this. Not only are the Pats the best team in the AFC, they're the best team in the NFL.
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