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PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — Political appointees in the Trump administration relied on faulty science to justify stripping habitat protections for the imperiled northern spotted owl, U.S. wildlife officials said Tuesday as they struck down a rule that would have opened millions of acres of forest in Oregon, Washington and California to potential logging. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service reversed a decision made five days before Trump left office to drastically shrink so-called critical habitat for the spotted owl. The small, reclusive bird has been in decline for decades as old-growth forests disappear. The Associated Press obtained details on Tuesday’s...

•The price of lumber futures has fallen to its lowest level since November 2020, erasing this year's dizzying gains.•An investment chief says the price of the commodity could reach its pre-pandemic level in the next 12 months.•He added, however, that the price trends will vary by geography. Prices for lumber futures have descended to levels not seen since November 2020, erasing this year's dizzying gains amid a cooling demand for the red-hot commodity. Lumber prices fell for the 10th consecutive week to trade at $536 per thousand board feet - 67% lower from their May 7 peak of $1,670 per...

Lumber futures on Chicago Mercantile Exchange plunged more than 40% in June, suffering the worst ever monthly decline on record dating back to 1978. Prices are down 18% in 2021 and recorded the first negative first half since 2015. Lumber peaked in late April/early May at around $1,711 per thousand board feet, and as of Thursday morning, prices are down more than 4% to $684. It appears the great lumber bubble of 2021 has encountered a classic commodity blowoff top, down -60% from the highs.Readers may recall we’ve been closely following the lumber bubble: The latest drop in prices “suggests...

Lumber futures on Chicago Mercantile Exchange have been nearly halved in a matter of a month to $879 per thousand board feet from the all-time high in May of around $1,711. The reason for the latest downdraft is because sawmills are boosting output and domestic production is increasing, catching up with demand. “High prevailing prices have already encouraged lumber mills to boost output, and we anticipate that domestic production will rise even further as labor shortages in the trucking and forestry sector dissipate,” Samuel Burman, assistant commodities economist at Capital Economics. Lumber, which is typically transported on one of three...

Earlier this month, we told readers, “Lumber Prices Slump As Historic Boom Hits A Wall,” as sawmills were catching up with the flurry of demand from North American homebuilders amid supply chain issues, which created massive supply constraints, which propelled lumber prices to record highs. Ole Hansen, Saxo Bank’s chief commodity strategist, said the plunge in lumber prices might spiral down some more as speculators exit their positions and supply catches up with demand. Lumber futures on Chicago Mercantile Exchange are down more than 2% on Thursday. Prices have fallen 44% since May’s record high of over $1,700 per thousand...

Lumber prices are falling back to Earth. Futures for July delivery ended Tuesday at $1,009.90 per thousand board feet, down 41% from the record of $1,711.20 reached in early May. Futures have declined 14 of the past 16 trading days. Cash lumber prices are also crashing. Pricing service Random Lengths said Friday that its framing composite index, which tracks on-the-spot sales, dropped $122 to $1,324, its biggest ever weekly decline. The pullback came just six weeks after the index rose $124 during the first week of May, its most on record. Random Lengths described a chaotic rout in which sawmill...

Lumber futures on Chicago Mercantile Exchange posted their largest-ever weekly loss, extending a multi-week decline as sawmill output increases and buyers hold off on purchases, according to Bloomberg. On Friday, lumber futures fell 5.61% to $1,059.20 per thousand board feet. For the week, prices plunged 18%, the most significant decline since 1986, one year before the 1987 stock market crash.Lumber prices have crashed 40% from the record high in May of around $1,711.Lumber prices have catapulted into the stratosphere in the last year, hitting renovators, home builders, buyers, and anyone else extremely hard. The National Association of Home Builders (NAHB)...

Insane Lumber Prices Show How Governments Break EconomiesLockdowns, tariffs, and other market interventions made wood an expensive commodity.If, like me, you went to purchase lumber within the past few months for your garden, shelves, or other home projects, you found yourself paying through the nose for materials—or else putting off the work in hopes of lower prices in the future. It's even worse if you're a awaiting a new home, since expensive lumber is adding tens of thousands of dollars to the price of building the average house. You can blame pandemic-era lockdowns, tariffs, and other government interventions in the...

The price of lumber in the U.S. has tripled during the coronavirus pandemic, adding thousands of dollars to the cost of a new house. Framing lumber was priced at $1,200 per thousand board feet as of late April, a 250% increase from the year-ago period when the price was about $350, according to an analysis from the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB). For house hunters, that adds an average of nearly $36,000 to the price of a home.Homeowners, stuck indoors during the pandemic, have recently been buying up lumber to complete renovations or additions on their house, Jannke told...

Lumber futures on Chicago Mercantile Exchange fell -3.1% to $1,284.20 per 1,000 board feet, extending last week’s first loss since January. For the last 18 trading sessions, lumber prices have come under pressure amid signs that an unprecedented rally may be waning. Citing data from trade publication Random Lengths, CIBC analyst Hamir Patel told Bloomberg that Western spruce-pine-fir prices decreased $130, or -8.1%, compared to last week’s $1,470 per 1,000 board feet, and Southern yellow pine 2×4 lumber dropped $92, or -6.9%, to $1,236 per 1,000 board feet.The decline comes alongside a drop in lumber futures, which have tumbled into...

Rising lumber prices have been a major source of inflation concerns. It’s one thing when the price of lumber doubles… and a whole other thing when it goes up 5-fold! Yep, that’s right. Lumber prices have rocketed higher over the past 18 months, surging 5 times the COVID crash price low. Something’s Gotta Give! Today’s long-term “monthly” lumber chart highlights why there is a potential for a reversal / pullback in lumber prices over the coming weeks/months. As you can see, the surge in lumber has price testing the 261% Fibonacci extension level, as well as the underside of the...

Russ Permann has watched lumber prices soar so high that even a small pile of softwood is now viewed as a precious commodity, worthy of a punch line. “I’m getting lumber memes in e-mails from friends and family,” said Mr. Permann, a wholesaler who is chief executive officer at Taiga Building Products Ltd. One friend messaged him a joke about a guy driving a pickup truck filled with two-by-fours in the back. The reaction of a bystander? “Look, everybody, there’s a millionaire!” The psychology behind lumber markets has changed dramatically over the past year, catching the industry by surprise, from...

Copper for delivery in July was up 1.71% by 1:42 pm (EDT), with futures at $4.6015 per pound ($10,123 a tonne) on the Comex market in New York, over the $4.58 per pound high reached in February 2011. The reopening of major industrial economies is sparking a surge across commodities markets from corn to lumber, with tin climbing above $30,000 a tonne for the first time since 2011 also on Thursday. Copper has gained 28.1% since the end of last year and is up 114.9% from its 2020 low, hit in March of that year amid the global economic fallout...

Speaking to Berkshire’s millions of shareholders on Saturday, Buffett warned the company was being hit by inflationary pressures: “We’re seeing very substantial inflation – it’s very interesting. I mean, we’re raising prices. People are raising prices to us. And it’s being accepted.” “The costs are just up, up, up. Steel costs, you know, just every day, they’re going up.” “And it just won’t stop! People have money in their pocket, and they pay the higher prices… There’s more inflation going on that people would have anticipated six months ago or thereabouts.” -VIDEO

We are seeing substantial inflation," Buffett said at the Berkshire Hathaway annual shareholder meeting broadcast exclusively by Yahoo Finance. "We are raising prices. People are raising prices to us, and it's being accepted." Buffett called out much higher steel costs impacting Berkshire's housing and furniture businesses. Subramanian thinks investors could see a "robust" rebound in inflation in coming months in the wake of the latest round of C-suite commentary. "Inflation is arguably the biggest topic during this earnings season, with a broad array of sectors (Consumer/Industrials/Materials, etc.) citing inflation pressures," Subramanian notes. Proctor & Gamble said recently it would begin...

Lumber prices are so high that this ordinarily sleepy industry has captured headlines around the world. The generic lumber spot price reached $1,420.50 at time of writing — more than triple the figure of December 2019. The National Association of Home Builders estimates that this has added $24,000 to the average cost of new home construction relative to this time last year. It's an unfortunate situation for builders, buyers of newly constructed homes, or anyone else who uses lumber. But it's also an unavoidable long-term consequence of some horrific policy mistakes that were made after the Great Recession. The only...

Would you pay $100 for a sheet of plywood? I know that sounds absolutely crazy, but we are almost there. The price of plywood has been soaring into the stratosphere in recent weeks, and analysts are telling us that it will remain high for the foreseeable future. Memes about plywood have started to pop up all over social media, but this is no joking matter. These extraordinarily high prices are causing a lot of pain in the homebuilding industry, and many Americans have had to postpone construction plans indefinitely. Unfortunately, our national leaders continue to flood the system with even...

Soaring lumber prices are holding back a U.S. housing market. The number of building permits issued in March rose 2.7% month over month to a seasonally adjusted annualized rate of 1.766 million. The uptick is a mere blip on the radar compared with the 19.4% increase in housing starts, which grew at their fastest pace in nearly 16 years. Typically, building begins within two months of issuance, according to the National Association of Home Builders. Some developers have "held back on projects on the expectation that prices will soon fall back," wrote Matthew Pointon, senior property economist at the research...

With median prices for both existing and new homes at all time highs, and soaring at a record annualized rate of almost 20%...... increasingly more Americans find themselves priced out of homeownership, while still cautious banks refuse to lend them the mortgages they so desperately need to live the American Dream (on credit). And unfortunately, since most US houses are made out of wood, we have even more bad news: home prices are about to get even more expensive if for no other reason than the frenzy sweeping the lumber market is set to keep going through the summer peak...