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Nobel-prize winning economist Robert Shiller believes a recession may be years away due to a bullish Trump effect in the market. According to the Yale University professor, President Donald Trump is creating an environment that’s conducive to strong consumer spending, and it’s a major force that should hold off a recession. Before the markets can take-off, Shiller stresses President Trump needs to get past the impeachment inquiry. He sees this as the biggest threat to his optimistic forecast. Yet, he’s sticking with the idea that the economy and markets should have a lot of runway left for gains if President...

A growing number of investors believe that US stocks are overvalued, creating the risk of a significant bear market, according to research by Yale University market scholar Robert Shiller. The Nobel economics laureate told the Financial Times that his valuation confidence indices, based on investor surveys, showed greater fear that the market was overvalued than at any time since the peak of the dotcom bubble in 2000. Nobel economics laureate Robert Shiller “It looks to me a bit like a bubble again with essentially a tripling of stock prices since 2009 in just six years and at the same time...

Mamta BadkarMay 27, 2014 We just got March S&P Case-Shiller home prices that beat expectations. The numbers showed home prices were cooling, but they nevertheless reflected increases on month-over-month and year-over-year bases. However, Ian Shepherdson chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics says "this report makes no sense." This is because "every indicator" of the house market he watches is slowing or falling. "We don't know if the March problem is Easter seasonal adjustments or the long-standing issue of fully adjusting for changes in the proportion of foreclosure sales in the sample, but we think the real trend in existing home prices...

Lender Processing Services today released its latest LPS Home Price Index (HPI) report, based on April 2013 residential real estate transactions. Home prices rose 1.5% from March to April and 8.1% Year over Year (YoY). Where did home prices rise the fastest? 9 of the 10 faster rising metro areas are in California (and Bend OR is really California El Norte). San Francisco is the most expensive metro area on the list. Do we really need to have conforming loan limits set high for San Francisco (or California)? Compare this list with Bloomberg’s “Bubble List” where rising home prices are...

The S&P/Case-Shiller index of property values in 20 cities rose 9.3 percent in February from the same month in 2012, more than forecast, after rising 8.1 percent in the year ended in January. Compared with the prior month, prices rose the most since October 2005. From January to February, Las Vegas was the big winner NSA. Minneapolis was the biggest loser (followed by Chicago and Cleveland). The supply of homes in the US is back to 2005 levels. Low supply, low mortgage rates, rising house prices? In related news, the Chicago Purchasing Manager Index fell below 50 and the Milwaukee...

The S&P/Case-Shiller index of property values in 20 cities increased 4.3 percent from October 2011, the biggest 12-month advance since May 2010. The median forecast projected a 4 percent gain. On a month-over-month basis, house prices rose 0.48% in October. I should not that these are seasonally adjusted numbers. On a non seasonally adjusted basis, house prices actually fell slightly in October by -0.1%. oct12-case-shiller The Case-Shiller 20 (green), FNC 30 (yellow) and FHFA Purchase Only (purple) indices are all showing house price recovery from the the disastrous housing bubble. Of course, The Federal Reserve and the fiscal fiasco in...

Owning or Renting: High Risk or Tragedy of the Commons? The tragedy of the commons is the depletion of a shared resource by individuals, acting independently and rationally according to each one’s self-interest, despite their understanding that depleting the common resource is contrary to their long-term best interests. Examples abound such as common grazing on public land, depletion of fish in the ocean and why public restrooms are usually filthy. Homeownership is an example of the “tragedy of the commons.” Public housing projects, such as the infamous Cabrini Green in Chicago, are an example. Public housing is often poorly maintained...

This coming Wednesday features a myriad of important economic, housing and mortgage reports: GDP, Pending Home Sales, Mortgage Purchase Applications, Pending Homes Sales and Corporate Profits. But on Tuesday, the Case-Shiller home prices indices will be released (and that means a busy day on TV for Yale Professor Robert Shiller). What are we expecting for Tuesday’ Case-Shiller 20 metro home price index? In a nutshell, it will show that house prices are recovering. FNC (blue) and FHFA (gold) have already released their home price indices last week and both show an uptick in their recent release for June 2012. What...

The housing bubble continues to deflate despite the Obama administration’s efforts to delay the inevitable. Housing prices sank faster in September than in any time this year after seeing them rise briefly in the spring, thanks to short-term interventions by the federal government. As foreclosures start increasing, values will drop even further: Home prices are falling faster in the nation’s largest cities, and a record number of foreclosures are expected to push prices down further through next year. The Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller 20-city home price index released Tuesday fell 0.7 percent in September from August. Eighteen of the cities recorded...