Lumber crash leads to 'blowout' sales as prices crater • Hacker News Board

Re: Lumber crash leads to 'blowout' sales as prices crater

#81

Post by kortilla » Thu, Sep 16, 2021, 3:58 AM UTC

godelski wrote: post #52

xnx wrote: post #35

Multi-year chart of lumber prices puts some of these "skyrocketing" and "cratering" headlines in perspective: https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/lumber

To me what is interesting is comparing to other commodities. For Iron you see a similar pattern to lumber. Copper and steel boombed but are only starting to turn now. Is there a lag between raw materials and more refined materials? Silver and gold similarly, though gold has fallen harder. I'm guessing because of all the doomers that buy gold when the economy dips. I don't know how to analyze wheat. And crude oil just…

There isn’t a common theme really because these things are nothing alike. Oil crashed because there was a glut and that toxic sludge needs special infrastructure to store it.

You can store a million dollars of gold in a suitcase. A million dollars of oil at $10/barrel (the price right before the crash) is 3.5 million gallons of oil that has to be stored somewhere. And on a physical delivery futures contract you’ve agreed to take that delivery.

99.999% of oil traders are incapable of taking or providing delivery for settlement because of this and what you witnessed was nobody wanting to get caught holding the bag.

Re: Lumber crash leads to 'blowout' sales as prices crater

#82

Post by JKCalhoun » Thu, Sep 16, 2021, 4:00 AM UTC

paulpauper wrote: post #12

This is why commodities make poor investments. As prices go up, so does supply and demand for alternatives.

A little like the lesson the Hunt brothers learned regarding silver.

Re: Lumber crash leads to 'blowout' sales as prices crater

#83

Post by Mountain_Skies » Thu, Sep 16, 2021, 4:00 AM UTC

silisili wrote: post #5

2x4s are reasonable again near me. However, plywood is not for some reason. The cheapest grade crap is 30 a 4x8 at Lowes tonight.

The price drops do seem to have been selective. I've been waiting to buy a bunch of landscape timber for some projects in the yard but the price hasn't gone down one penny from the peak. Many other types of lumber have gone down. No idea why this is the case. I can see on the big box stores websites that the inventory keeps going down and getting replenished, so unless they bought a bunch at the peak and warehoused them, it doesn't make sense to me why they're more than twice the price they were six or seven months ago while other products have returned to similar prices to what they were early in the year.

Re: Lumber crash leads to 'blowout' sales as prices crater

#84

Post by marricks » Thu, Sep 16, 2021, 4:01 AM UTC

JohnJamesRambo wrote: post #42

xnx wrote: post #35

Multi-year chart of lumber prices puts some of these "skyrocketing" and "cratering" headlines in perspective: https://tradingeconomics.com/commodity/lumber

I don’t understand your comment and scare quotes, do you think a quadrupling in price of a commodity is not skyrocketing? That’s a cool website thank you for sharing it.

Cratering seemed like it deserved "scare quotes" though, this trough is still one of the highest prices of wood compared to almost any time before 2017.

Re: Lumber crash leads to 'blowout' sales as prices crater

#85

Post by ggm » Thu, Sep 16, 2021, 4:03 AM UTC

Until the intermodal container crisis resolves, Prices worldwide for construction materials will probably still be all over the place.

I'd expect localized shortages of almost anything, if it has to be carried by sea.

Re: Lumber crash leads to 'blowout' sales as prices crater

#86

Post by archsurface » Thu, Sep 16, 2021, 4:05 AM UTC

mgkimsal wrote: post #13

"If high prices held you back from building, you are in luck, as the tables have now turned" Except... many builders will find some other reason/excuse where prices are high to keep prices high. We were looking at building a house - talked to builder last November and... looking at $470-$480k range (ballpark estimate). Lumber was going higher, but we'd reduced the house plan size. Lumber kept going up... and up... Th…

Yep, but the talk from above is about "transitory inflation". Maybe it is, but I agree sellers will drag out inflated prices as long as possible.

I'm curious about US price of land. I looked into building a place in the UK, and the price of land alone was a blocker.

Re: Lumber crash leads to 'blowout' sales as prices crater

#87

Post by pram » Thu, Sep 16, 2021, 4:06 AM UTC

chejazi wrote: post #69

xnx wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks. I'm legitimately quoting, but also prefer use of more specific terms like "tripled" or "fives times more expensive" etc. than common dramatic headlines words like "crushed", "slammed", "blasted", "surged".

Don't forget "soared" and "plunged", used practically any day the market moves more than a hair.

Most (maybe all) of those market action articles are written by bots so I assume they intentionally prefer provocative words for click bait

Re: Lumber crash leads to 'blowout' sales as prices crater

#88

Post by Torwald » Thu, Sep 16, 2021, 4:07 AM UTC

xnx wrote: post #61

hoppyhoppy2 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps they were just quotation marks rather than scare quotes and they genuinely wanted to show how wild the price fluctuations have been. Cynicism abounds on the internet, but people are still sometimes genuine.

Thanks. I'm legitimately quoting, but also prefer use of more specific terms like "tripled" or "fives times more expensive" etc. than common dramatic headlines words like "crushed", "slammed", "blasted", "surged".

I think some of those dramatic terms are more specific, if and when the described occurence is something very unusual. Then they convey (if choosen right) the unusualness and thus gain a higher information density for the outsider.

Re: Lumber crash leads to 'blowout' sales as prices crater

#89

Post by lamontcg » Thu, Sep 16, 2021, 4:08 AM UTC

JimTheMan wrote: post #77

kortilla wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, that’s not really skyrocketing if your point of reference is other volatile things (stocks, crypto currencies, etc).

It's skyrocketing for a real good that people consume in the everyday of industry. Not some silly fantasy speculation good, like crypto or... overvalued stock.

Yeah I don't have much of a quibble with calling those prices as being "skyrocketing" particularly if you look at the 25 year history. Those prices were very high.

Although it just "cratered" or "crashed" back down to entirely normal. Doesn't look like there's any oversupply glut causing it to overshoot to the downside. Lumber companies will have to learn to make do with charging the same prices they charged before the pandemic.

Re: Lumber crash leads to 'blowout' sales as prices crater

#90

Post by satya71 » Thu, Sep 16, 2021, 4:08 AM UTC

octopoc wrote: post #60

hellbannedguy wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would wait. I'm an licensed inactive General Contractor. If 14 months ago, they were building them for $450,000, I'd wait. I'd shop around for another contractor too. A young guy starting out, might save you a lot. (There's no way to verify he knows what he's doing though.) If you are some what handy, it's not that difficult to owner build your own house. That is if you get the blueprints past the town's council. G…

If I may ask, what are your thoughts on BuildZoom? If I go through them can I be more certain about quality work? I have heard many horror stories of people who had houses built and the builders made terrible mistakes. The person having the house built had to micromanage them and kept finding bad mistakes, like "forgetting" to put insulation in walls before the drywall, putting a window in the wrong spot, or putting…

Unconventional, a St Louis entrepreneur built a container house. Few things to go wrong there.