big picture, CPI probably the method of adjustment with the least issues. HAI is probably one of the worst in my opinion

Lsat?

Awesome charts.

I prefer to look at nominals too for housing, but understand why the adjustments are necessary for the comparison.
A million different ways to adjust (HAI vs CPI vs wages, etc.) each with adv/disadv, but I think the similarities would be clear regardless of the method.

Great work. Thanks for putting the time into it.

I think as NE RE numbers continue to plummet, NJ (along with CT, NY, PA, MA, etc.) will catch up with CA.

That neg equity figure rises with every month of price drops, which I think have been accelerating in the NE.

My guess is that gov’t bailouts caused a delay in NY metro corrections due to an expectation that gov’t $ would preserve jobs and house prices.

P.S. Not lecturing you.. Just thinking out loud.

” Cindy says:
May 9, 2009 at 6:47 pm
…
Also – middle of the page or so #7
“Percentage of mortgage properties with negative equity”

It looks like CA @ 30% and NJ @ 10%.”

What MSA does Monmouth Co fall under? I always look at ‘Edison/New Brunswick’ or sometimes it’s reported as just ‘Edison’.

Right? Wrong?

FHFA. That’s the weak number in your 4 index average.

” lurkerd says:
May 9, 2009 at 9:36 am

If one observes the decline from peak for each of the 4 most relevant home price indices and takes an average of the 4 results, then the decline equals 11%.

The indices are:
FHFA
NJAR
S&P/Case-Shiller New York area house
S&P/Case-Shiller New York area condo”

WSJ
MAY 11, 2009 World Regains Taste for Risk
Stocks, Currencies in Emerging Markets Soar; China’s Stimulus Spending Kicks In
By JOHN LYONS, ALEX FRANGOS and ALASTAIR STEWART

Investors are aggressively piling back into markets shunned as too risky just a few weeks ago — driving up stocks in the developing world and raising concerns that the euphoria may be overdone.

As fears of a deepening global recession are pushed aside by expectations of recovery, investors have rediscovered their appetite for risk in places ranging from Brazil and China to Russia. Brazil’s Bovespa stock index is up 75% since its October lows, and across the emerging-market world, stocks are up 50% since the beginning of March, according to the MSCI Emerging Markets index, which tracks 23 markets.

During the week ended May 6, investors plowed $4 billion into emerging-market investment funds, marking the biggest week for the funds since late 2007 — and their eighth-largest week ever — according to Bank of America-Merrill Lynch and EPFR Global. Meanwhile, investors withdrew $9.8 billion from U.S. funds in seven weeks.

Behind the optimism are signs the worst of the global slump may have passed, and that China’s massive stimulus plan is kicking in, heralding a pickup in demand for commodities and agricultural products.

“These moves back upward are real,” says Robert Weissenstein, chief investment officer at Credit Suisse’s private bank. He cites investors’ renewed belief that economies such as Brazil and China will grow faster than the developed world. Barring unforseen events, he says, “The black hole in front of us is gone,” referring to the broader threat of possible collapse of some markets or economies.

The sudden run-up has some observers concerned that investors may be too optimistic. Not long ago, Brazilian leaders were upset that Wall Street was underestimating the nation’s resilience amid a global sell-off. After an rebound in its shares and currency, the message has changed: Calm down.

” The excess of optimism is dangerous and could lead to disappointment the first time there is a negative number,” Brazilian central banker Henrique Meirelles told a conference in recent days. “Brazil is showing signs of recovery on the margins, but that doesn’t mean [the crisis] is over.”

Brazil was forced to intervene in its currency market twice in the past week to prevent its currency, the real, from strengthening too quickly against the dollar. Currently, it’s trading around 2.07 per dollar.

Just six months ago, the real was plunging, blowing huge holes in the balance sheets of blue-chip companies such as pulp maker Aracruz Celulose SA. The company’s market value lost $2 billion when the currency crashed after it (and other companies) invested in various hedging strategies that wrongly assumed the real would stay strong back then.

Now Brazilian stocks are the world’s second-best performer after Russia, according to MSCI Barra.

Investors, who during the height of the crisis had been hoarding cash — especially U.S. dollars and Japanese yen — are now more willing to put some of that cash back into foreign stocks.

An index showing the U.S. dollar against a basket of currencies is down 7.5% since March 5. The dollar traded Friday at a seven-week low against the euro at $1.3628.

Investors appear to be trying to get in early on a long-term bet: Emerging-market economies will get back into their grooves long before the U.S. or Europe shake off the global crisis.

“Several emerging economies entered the crisis with better initial conditions and, as such, will likely maintain a better economic performance than most industrial countries going forward,” says Mohamed El-Erian of Pacific Investment Management Co., manager of the world’s biggest bond fund.

Economists see rebounding global commodity prices as an early sign that economies such as China’s are beginning to hum again. When China’s economy is strong, it ranks among the world’s most voracious consumers of oil, metals and other raw materials. Crude-oil futures prices rose 10% to a six-month high of $58.63 a barrel, while natural gas jumped 21% last week.

And while most of Eastern Europe struggles to recover from an economic slump, Russian stocks have come back 45% this year, thanks to rising prices for energy and metals, two commodities it produces. Investors have plowed $376 million into investment funds that invest in Russia this year, according to Bank of America-Merrill Lynch.

Uri Landesman, head of international equities at ING Investment Management, bought stocks in Russia and Brazil last week. Currently, his funds have about 30% of their assets invested in emerging markets — his largest proportion ever.

“I’m really stepping on the gas pedal,” he said. Countries that depend on selling commodities such as oil or steel, as do many emerging economies, were disproportionately abandoned by investors during the crisis, he said. That means they are more likely to show a bigger rebound than more developed nations as global demand begins to improve.

“I think it’s an awareness of where the growth stories are coming from,” says Jonathan Auerbach, managing director at international brokerage Auerbach Grayson. “We’re about 12 months away from a genuine return to global growth, and it’s going to be driven by the emerging markets.” His firm last week traded in more than 50 different markets, while a more typical weekly number is 25 to 30.

Mr. Auerbach said he doesn’t expect a big pullback in emerging markets, because they began to rally from a much lower point than U.S. markets did. “While they’ve had big moves, there’s still a lot to go.”

WSJ
HEARD ON THE STREET MAY 11, 2009 Demands on Network Are an iPhone Hang-Up

The iPhone has made AT&T the cool kid on the cellphone block, bringing in lots of new customers all eager to play with the shiny new device.

Trouble is, the iPhone is expensive for AT&T, and not just because of the heavy subsidies on the initial purchase price.

Users of iPhone download games, video and other Web data at two to four times the rate of other smartphone users, according to comScore. Yet AT&T charges iPhone subscribers the same fee of $30 a month for data that it levies on other smartphone customers. And aside from restricting certain activities, like file sharing, AT&T doesn’t limit how much data can be downloaded.

But Web applications popular with iPhone customers are bandwidth hogs. A recent analysis by Alcatel-Lucent of North American wireless network use during the midday hour on one day found Web browsing was consuming 32% of data-related airtime but 69% of bandwidth, while email used 30% of data airtime but only 4% of bandwidth. Email taxes network resources but in a different way.

As the proportion of customers with iPhones grows — 5.9 million 3G iPhones were activated in the last three quarters, 7.5% of AT&T’s total subscribers — the resulting growth in downloading and Web browsing will strain AT&T’s network. AT&T will need to add cell towers and spend more on the back-haul lines that connect the towers to the rest of the network.

The iPhone is the leading edge of a challenge for the wireless industry. Until now, carriers have boosted revenues by taking on new customers — even when average revenues per user haven’t grown much. For example, Verizon Wireless, controlled by Verizon Communications, has lifted ARPU only slightly to almost $52 a month over the past few years.

The falling cost of voice minutes and additions of lower-end customer has offset growth of text messaging and other data services. Voice and texting use little bandwidth and are lucrative.

Now, new customers are harder to come by. The question is whether new data revenues the industry is banking on — from Web-browsing and entertainment services — will be as profitable, at least as measured by return on invested capital. That looks doubtful. To ensure networks have the capacity to offer these services, particularly bandwidth-heavy offerings like video streaming, carriers will have to make heavy capital investment. Both AT&T and Verizon are building the next-generation 4G network, each spending more than $9 billion last year on new wireless spectrum, as well as $6 billion annually on overall capacity.

The new networks are likely to be more efficient at delivering data applications. Even so, Sanford C. Bernstein analyst Craig Moffett argues that returns on invested capital related to these new services will be lower than on older services.

In the short term, carriers should abandon unlimited data pricing plans. Both AT&T and Verizon Wireless already charge extra for heavy users with wirelessly connected laptops. They will have to contemplate similar strategies for smartphone users.

Setting the right price won’t be easy. With competition, the temptation to discount will be hard to avoid. And there’s no guarantee that customers will pay as much for entertainment as for voice-calling and email.

Whatever they do, the carriers may be caught between a rock and a hard place.

ChicagoFin
i already have a pretty diverse portfolio including ung, gxc, fxc, gld, an energy mlp and a couple blue chips but im always open to ways to improve the portfolio. What do you recomend?

I veto your use of the word “diverse”….gas, copper, gold, china and a couple of blue chips? It looks as if you are making one big bet on China to me…except for the gas piece…withstanding Mickey D’s which I assume is one of your chips…your others better be something non-cyclical, cash rich, and not already on a huge run in the last 60 days….