Lumber Briefs: A Fragile Housing Recovery Built on Credit Matt Layman Many Americans are not overzealous about the moderate improvements to their lifestyle, income, and overall state of wellbeing during this economic recovery. That is being expressed by the stock market’s decline and increased recession rhetoric. No in-depth statistical analysis is needed... Read More November 2018 Issue #10232 Page 78
Lumber Briefs: Lumber Market Forecast Matt Layman Tariffs Keep U.S. & Canadian Lumber Border-Bound About Housing Affordability: The evidence continues to pile on. Let’s just skip right over the sources and the comments. They are numerous and more frequent. 25% of all homes for sale have lowered prices. New and existing home... Read More October 2018 Issue #10231 Page 96
Lumber Briefs: The BEST Sales Pitch...Ever Matt Layman Sales-folk are plagued with an addiction to “get the order.” Deep down inside, we want ALL the orders. Unfortunately, for every sales person, there is an opponent who has the same desire...Get ‘em all. Egotistical human drive opened the door for masters of the art of selling... Read More September 2018 Issue #10230 Page 91
Lumber Briefs: Was the 2018 Canadian Rail Car Shortage Real or Imagined? Matt Layman There is a longer, quite fascinating tale to be pondered on the subject of this year’s historic western Canadian shipment backlog, however, for now let’s skip the conspiracy theories and stick to the confirmable facts. The source for this article’s information is the... Read More August 2018 Issue #10229 Page 87
Lumber Briefs: Lumber Doing Its Seasonal 180° Matt Layman Now 39 years into this lumber gig, there is one thing I have more confidence in than anything else. It is the foundation of my entire lumber career and reason for my success forecasting lumber market timing. The repeating lumber market cycle. Some of it sloshes around, yet, in spite of all the... Read More July 2018 Issue #10228 Page 81
Lumber Briefs: Lumber: Why So High? Matt Layman Rationing On May 23, in its most active lumber futures day ever, the market traded $68 of volatility from $15 limit down to $30 limit up and back down $15 to unchanged. Why is that? Futures suspected what we Layman’s Lumber Guide members have known since mid-May. BC mills are not... Read More June 2018 Issue #10227 Page 83
Lumber Briefs: Trucking Shortage: Lumber’s Summer Nightmare Matt Layman We lumber types have come to expect the unexpected. Hence, there is great value when we can identify, well in advance, what the next price manipulating phenomenon might be. 2018 has been a year of looking for an elusive lumber market top. Early in the year I went so far as to call 2018 a bear... Read More May 2018 Issue #10226 Page 77
Lumber Briefs: More Lumber Price Volatility Ahead Matt Layman There are three fundamental lumber market components that will likely combine to make 2018 the most volatile year for prices on record. LABOR: ICE gave notice last week that it intends to crack down on undocumented workers in the construction industry...on the jobsites. We already... Read More April 2018 Issue #10225 Page 83
Lumber Briefs: Managing the Bear Market Matt Layman 4 Costly Bear Market Mistakes! What could possibly be worse than missing a huge bullish market move? There are four critical bull market mistakes. Actually, they go both ways...bull and bear markets. Failure to acknowledge that the trend/price direction is preparing to reverse. This... Read More March 2018 Issue #10224 Page 77
Lumber Briefs: What Could Go Wrong? vs. Nothing Could Go Wrong! Matt Layman “What is the lumber market going to do?” is a very important question and the answer is very simple. It is going to rise and fall. Brilliant, right? A better question might be, “How far will lumber prices rise and fall?” That answer requires an understanding of... Read More February 2018 Issue #10223 Page 81