Interesting Thought

One more thing about the VIC. There was not one housing or building product idea pitched. That shocked me. The closest you came was Scott Bommer and SAB Capital with American Standard Business (an air conditioning company) and Mark Sellars with Lowe's (the big box retailer, as a side note 25% of Sellar's portfolio is in Lowe's, WOW). Other than that there was nothing even remotely related. There was even a joke about the USG pitch from a year ago. Absent were homebuilders such as NVR or MDC as examples, and building product guys such as USG, Builders Firstsouce, or US Concrete

As I said last week the tone on CNBC has changed dramatically in the last few weeks with the talking heads on homebuilding related stocks.

What does all this mean when even the value guys are not actively talking about it (many of these same individuals have gotten burned, I know I look at there filings, it makes you wonder how close the bottom really is. I think I would be shocked if we are more than three months out from a bottom. The biggest risk of course is we are heading towards a 1989 Japanese metldown. This is what Prem Watsa believes. The Canadian investing guru says he is 75% to 80% in government debt which he has never been before. He would know, he lived and worked in Japan during that time.

Full article on Prem's comments here.
https://secure.globeadvisor.com/servlet/ArticleNews/story/gam/20071123/RFAIRFAXMARKET23