Archive for August 2010
While the headlines for this month’s release of the Case-Shiller indices look positive, many who follow this market know that the index does not reflect today’s (8/31/2010) sentiment, but measures a 3-month window, that is lagged two months.
As the … Read More
One of the upsides of blogging, and focusing on a single topic, is that you get introduced to, or stumble across others, who share your enthusiasm for a topic. As such it was my good fortune to run into the … Read More
Of all the intesting information in yesterday’s NAR release of Existing Home Sales (see link to NAR site), the one that resonated with me was the attached table. It shows 1) how concentrated sales are in the $100-250,000 price range, … Read More
A number of people interested in following the Case Shiller indices have focused on the 20-city index. While this is a broader index, the CME contracts are on the 10-city index. Therefore, if you’re going to trade the CUS contract, … Read More
One of my personal highlights of the recent Treasury meeting to address housing problems was to discover that HUD has been following the CME futures markets – and uses changes in the prices of forward contracts as indications of changes … Read More
With the expiration of the August contracts approaching, I thought that it might be useful to illustrate how convergence in the CME Home Price futures contracts as taken place in the past.
The graphs are of 1) the Nov 2007 … Read More
While trading in the front CME Home Price contracts has been were some of the recent activity has focused, (and where some analysis about short term home price trends has centered), the real-world economic value to these contracts is in … Read More
I want to start a tally of bullish and bearish outlooks on housing to share here. Disparate views help one better understand both sides of an arguement, and outlier views are good targets for trade prospects in these contracts.
In … Read More
While the CME contracts have not traded as frequently as I’d like, there has been some progress on bid-asked spreads over the last four months since I assumed the role of market maker.
Using the change in prices in the … Read More
From time to time, the market and forecasters move in opposite directions. That has been the case recently as it relates to home prices. Economists remain generally bearish on the outlook for home price changes for 2010. According to the … Read More
