Housing: It’s Different This Time

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Published

By William Trent, CFA of Stock Market Beat

Toll Brothers F4Q06 (Qtr End 10/31/06) Earnings Call Transcript – SeekingAlpha

As we previously announced, this quarter’s results were negatively impacted by a higher than normal 585 cancellations. With these cancellations creating unintended specs, we could face increasing margin pressure as we seek to move these homes. Right now it’s a great time to buy a new luxury home. Builders are motivated to sell their specs and the fundamentals that typically lead our industry out of the slowdown are already in place. Interest rates are near historic lows, unemployment is near an all-time low and the stock market is setting records.

The thing is, interest rates and unemployment were near all-time lows when the housing downturn started. What makes them think that those factors will help the market improve now?

The author may hold a position in the securities discussed. The author’s current holdings are as follows: Long: FedEx (FDX) put options; Intuit (INTU) put options; Nasdaq 100 (QQQQ) put options; Bookham (BKHM; Ballard Power (BLDP); Syntax Brillian (BRLC); CMGI (CMGI); Genentech (DNA); Ion Media Networks (ION); Lion’s Gate (LGF); Three Five Systems (TFS); Adobe Systems (ADBE) call options; IShares Japan (EWJ); StreetTracks Gold (GLD); Starbucks (SBUX); U.S. Oil Fund (USO); Plantronics (PLT) call options; Short: Ceradyne (CRDN) put options; Lion’s Gate (LGF) call options; Dell (DELL) put options; Plantronics (PLT) put options

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Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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