Insider Selling By Homebuilders

I haven't posted anything about the housing bubble lately. Also, if either of the jobs I've recently interviewed for pan out, we'll be moving, so , I guess I'm due. .

Here's an interesting fact (from Dallas Morning News Columnist Danielle Dimartino:

In the last six months, homebuilders have sold, on average, $347 for every dollar they've spent purchasing their own stock. Compare that to all industries, where insiders have sold $31 in stock for every dollar they bought.

Mr. LoPresti said July was the key month for homebuilder shareholders to watch what insiders were doing with their own shares.

"In July alone, homebuilding insiders liquidated 4.8 million shares of stock, the largest number in history, raising $333 million," Mr. LoPresti said.

The last time homebuilder insiders were this aggressive was May 1991, when they sold off 3.1 million shares in one month. This was followed by a 27 percent decline in homebuilder stocks over the next four month

Click here for the whole piece.

HT: Calculated Risk for the link.

As I've mentioned before, insider sales are typically much less informative than insider purchases. However, the magnitude of the selling is pretty impressive.

Fun With Do-It-Yourself

We wanted to move our main computer (the one the router's attached to) to a different room.

Unfortunately, the room we chose didn't have a cable outlet. So, my next-door neighbor said, "No problem, UP - I can drill a hole and run a new one to that room."

This is a long-winded way of saying that we're having computer problems at home and can't get online from there, so blogging from home may be light for the next few days until we fix the problem.

Tomorrow, I'll be at the office, and will post from there (I dropped by the library to do this one).

Academic Job Market Advice (via Madisonian.net)

Mike Madison at Madisonian.net provides some on-target advice for new job candidates in the academic market. He's gearing it towards law school jobs, but most of it also applies to finance/econ jobs. Here are some of his best tips:

Tip #1-A — Be familiar with the scholarship of faculty members of the interviewing school who write in your field, especially if those faculty members are on the interview team. Know what buttons you’re pushing when you make certain arguments, because you may get push-back from the author of the responsive argument, who is sitting in the room with you.

...Tip #1-C — Do not get defensive if someone attacks your work or your ideas. Engage! These interviews are often tests of your ability to have a charged but thoughtful scholarly dialogue, not tests of who is right and who is wrong.

Tip #1-D — Anticipate the inevitable academic’s question: “So, what are you working on now?,” and know that it refers not only to the draft that you mentioned on your CV, but also to the piece that comes next, and why.

Tip #2-A — The softball interview can be deceptive. Social fit matters to a lot of law faculties just like it matters to law firms. Stay on your toes, and don’t undersell your scholarly interests even if you’re not asked about them directly.

Tip #3 — Despite the fact that this is a ruthlessly competitive environment, be courteous to absolutely everyone you meet. In the best of all worlds, you will get the law faculty appointment of your dreams, and you can put the meat market unpleasantness safely behind you. Still, your scholarly reputation across the profession will begin at the Marriott Wardman. You will encounter many of your interviewers and many of your fellow candidates in the future, as colleagues at other law schools. Give each of them every reason to respect you when they see you or hear about you again.

He's got lots of other good advice, too. You can read it here.

I'd definitely second #3. Never show "attitude" to anyone. Almost every academic subdiscipline is a pretty small pond - if you act like a jerk to one person, you never know who they know (and who the people they know know).

I view the inital foray into the job market like a "coming out party". You get introduced to a lot of people at a lot of schools, and you'll also meet a lot of your "competition". Some of the other candidates I met during my first foray into the market are now among my closest friends. In fact, one of them was responsible for getting me an interview at one of the schools I'm currently taklking about.

So, you never know, and it pays to play nice with the other kids in the sandbox.

This Week's Carnival of The Capitalists

This week's COTC is up at Part Time Pundit. Here are a couple of pieces I liked:

Michael Cale of Financial Methods is talking about inflation-protected Treasury Securities in I-Bonds Yield Higher Than Treasuries. These securities have a current yield north of 6.5%, which is higher than any other money-market instrument.

Abnormal Returns gives us Emerging markets hoopla. He discusses academic research showing that higher economic growth isn't necessarily a precursor to higher stock market returns.

James Hamilton of Econbrowser talks about Oil Company Profits. He notes a puzzling pattern - that much of the oil companies' investments are for replacement of existing equipment rather than for new exploration.

As always, look around. You might find something you like.

This Week's Carnival of Personal Finance

As usual, Monday is Carnival Day. This week's Carnival of Personal Finance is up at Blueprint For Financial Prosperity. Here are some of this week's notable ones:

FMF at Free Money Finance will be discussing a recent article in Kiplinger's on retirement savings. In the first installment, he presents Seven Ideas for Maximizing Retirement Savings, Part 1.

All of us carry baggage from our childhoods --some good, and some bad. Nina at Sitting Pretty talks about some of the important financial lessons she learned from her childhood in a post titled ‚“Catch of the Day”

You won't need this if everything goes smoothly, but I'm a firm believer in Murphy's Law. In case it holds, David Porter at Pacesetter Mortgage Blog presents How to handle a complaint with a Mortgage Lender or Mortgage Broker.

A lot of people sequentially transfer credit card balances to avoid interest charges. Cap of StopBuyingCrap (hey, that rhymes...) shares some of the things you should watch for if you are considering about 0% balance transfer offers.

Dan Melson at Searchlight Crusade presents Credit Reports and Credit Score Manipulations

JLP of All Things Financial has been tkaking a tax class. Here he discusses ways to get Uncle Sam to pay for your college education.

That's all for now. As usual, look around -- tastes differ, and there's a lot of other good things up at the Carnival.

Blogging - Light

Blogging's been light because I made the mistake of upgrading Firefox (at which point it ceased working). So, no internet availability until I deleted every last trace Firefox from my system then reinstalled it. Finally, I'm back up and running.

But, yesterday also had it's bright spots - The Unknown Wife went to a ladies retreat at our church that took all day, so I got to spend a lot of time with the Unknown Son (age 7) and the Unknown Daughter (age 5). After morning swimming (actually, more like "splashing") lessons, we went to see Wallace and Gromit - the Curse of the Were-Rabbit. I'd recommend the film to anyone looking for a smart kids movie. There were a couple of scary parts that resulted in my daughter ending up in my lap (she didn't catch the satire), but in general it was pretty good.

Some of my friends are huge W&G fans. Now I can see why - the movie is ostensibly written for kids, but there's a whole other level of humor playing out that's aimed at grownups - like in the Veggie Tales or Shrek videos. This one looks like a keeper to actually buy for the collection.

In case you'd like to see more Wallace and Gromit, there's a DVD of short films out - Wallace & Gromit's Cracking Contraptions.

Questions About Grad School

Once or twice a year, a student expresses an interest in grad school. I've thought about putting together answers to frequently asked questions. But since it only happens occasionally, it was never worth the effort. Now, I don't have to, since someone els has already done it.

Mike Moffatt at About Economics has put together an excellent series of pieces on graduate school. While he's focusing on economics Ph.D programs, I'd say that about 90% of what he says is also relevent for students considering a Ph.D in Finance. Here they are:

In Choosing A Graduate School in Economics, Moffat provides general advice, but also gives links to several other resources, like this collection of advice on applying to grad school from Stanford and this one from Georgetown University.

In Economics Grad School Atmosphere, he points out the importance of the relationships between students and faculty in grad school (and of the relationships between students). After all, it's not unusual to spend 70, 80, or 90 hours a week around the department (and the average time to completion in grad school for econ and finance is probably 5 years), so being around people you don't like is plain foolish.

Finally, in Books To Study Before Going To Graduate School In Economics, he suggests some excellent books to read prior to starting grad school. Since most good finance programs give their students a solid grounding in microeconomics, mathematics, and econometrics, they're also pretty good recommendations for soon-to-be finance Ph.D. students.

I love it when someone does my work for me.

Best Ads On TV

Here's a little something you might find amusing - Best Ads On TV. They have an archive of hundreds of TV ads. There - now go waste some time.

Are Oil Company Profits Too High? (via Knowledge Problem)

Are oil companies making "Windfall Profits"? Lynne Kiesling at Knowledge Problem has a nice roundup on this and other oil-related issues, like how much profit is too much, what's the role of prices, and so on. Click here to read it.

This Week's Carnival of Personal Finance

This Week's Carnival of Personal Finance is up at Wealthyweb. My favorites for the week are:

In Online Banking Security, Five Cent Nickel describes the measures that banks must now take regarding online transactions.

Blueprint for Financial Security provides an Introduction to I-Bonds and Treasury Direct.

Flexo at Consumerism Commentary talks about the lack of competiveness in the real-estate industry in Commissions Still High

Free Money Finance discusses the question Invest or Pay Off Debt? There are virtues to each path.

2 Million got bad news - 0% balance transfers have negatively affected his credit.

Dan Melson at Searchlight Crusade presents Being Realistic Saves Money on your Mortgage

As usual, browse around. Tastes differ.