Focus on the Homebuilders in the Sunday Night Chat

I'm going to yack exclusively about the homebuilder stocks in this Sunday night's chat. This is a hot area and everyone is interested in real-estate related stuff now (a bad sign of course), so maybe we can max out the chat server for once.

Everyone's welcome (especially donors!) and I look forward to seeing you on Sunday night at 8 PM, Eastern Time.

Reading Roundup (III)

Articles I've read recently with my excerpts and comments in brackets, and other miscellany:

Is Anybody Making Movies We'll Actually Watch In 50 Years?, by David Ansen. [I disagree with almost all of Ansen's picks for movie immortality, but he does write a sweet line: "... the baby boomers had redefined the culture's perception of maturity, masculinity and aging. The boomers were conscientious objectors to adulthood." 'Conscientious objectors to adulthood,' nice! He also writes: "Gus Van Sant's wicked satire 'To Die For' was the film that sold me on Kidman: it deserves a long life, but it's already fading from the public's memory." It hasn't faded a bit from my memory, though the movie that sold me on Kidman was 'Dead Calm.']

Warren Buffett Q&A at Texas A&M again via the excellent vinvesting.com: ["Q: What is the more valuable area of academic study, accounting or finance? A: Accounting is the more valuable. It is the language of business." Amen!]

Parenting tip: When you're carrying baby around rocking him to sleep, make sure that you close your eyes and your pace is no faster than one stride per second (preferably slower). Baby likes to look in your face as you cradle him, so if you're wide-eyed he'll never nod off. Also I strongly recommend you get a sling to carry baby around in... ours was made by a company called Nojo, which I think must have 95% market share of the US babysling market.

Whenever I run the Ugly Scan (see below), I always think of the Mock Turtle telling Alice about his education: "[I took] Reeling and Writhing, of course, to begin with, and then the different branches of Arithmetic - Ambition, Distraction, Uglification, and Derision." (Everyone should have large sections of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland memorized.)

Small Cap Pick-O-The-Wick

My Ugly Scan of the S&P SmallCap 600 picked up UFPI. Breakout to a new high on unusual volume out of a fairly long consolidation. If this is your kind of thing, keep an eye on it.

UFPI, Weekly Chart