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The case for Lumber gang. Bullish $BCC, $ITB, $LPX. Bearish on home builders.
Let's talk Lumber Gang! Bullish on $BCC and $LPX. Bearish on Home Builders.
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\> where else you planning to put the money? Foreign equities. Take a look at SPY vs. country ETFs (EWO, EWY, EWP, etc.) over the 2025 year.
S&P didn't do that well, if you measure in euro. In fact, it was flat. Me, I went full Sell America in Jan. 2025 & moved my portfolio into various country & region ETFs (VGK, EWP, BBJP, EWY, etc.). I had a 40% return in 2025, measured in dollars. Measure in euros, of course, and the return isn't so eye-popping. But a good year, nonetheless. AND I considered it less risky than chilling with an ETF linked to a US index. Most would disagree with me on that risk estimate. My analysis for 20 years has been that the rest of the world's valuations made sense, and were even a little discounted. But I didn't follow up on that, and stayed invested in the US, because I believed in American Exceptionalism when it came to market psychology & global capital flows. I believe the era of American Exceptionalism ended (or at least started a multi-year hiatus) in Jan. 2025, and the traditional "US indexes are the safe investment" went out the window for me with American Exceptionalism. Now I have a relatively conservative, safe, and diversified portfolio EXCEPT that it is all international. But, of course, no guarantees.
Gather around good folks, I call this, the 'every man for himself trade', nations are treating their own stock exchange like national olympics: 1Y performance: SPY: 15.04% TSX (Canada): 32% EWZ (Brazil): 54.68% EPOL (Poland): 62.21% EWI (Italy): 44.64% EWP (Spain): 64.6% EWY (South Korea): 131.29% (this really is crazy, lol) Freakin' things are ripping, I can list several more national indexes just boomtowns, and what's interesting is that many fund managers with international and even emerging mandates tend to OVERLOOK above nations, still favoring Japan, China, France, Germany, the U.K often times.
Hi, my method is to find ETFs that are performing well (they have momentum), then buy LEAPS Calls on them at 80-delta or higher. You could read more [here ](https://www.reddit.com/r/InnerCircleInvesting/comments/1o5yt31/the_case_for_momentum_and_etfs_to_play_it/)about why I like ETFs and momentum, and how I find them. I choose 3 ETFs that are doing well and buy LEAPS Calls. Those typically give you 3-4 times leverage to shares. As those Calls appreciate I take profit out of them by rolling UP in strike and resetting back to 80-delta. You might not understand that concept yet, but I could explain it more. That profit goes into 100-120DTE Calls at 80-delta. Those give more like 5-7x leverage, delta-adjusted. I'm doing more than 50% per quarter across 6 accounts using tickers like XBI, XPH, SLV, ECH, EWP, & DXJ. Cut losers and let winners run. But it's not too labor-intensive, as I'm only needing to make a change maybe once a month. Best of luck.
Have you guys seen EWP and EPOL Spain and Polish markets up 50%+ this year over SPYs 12.6%
If you adjust those index to USD, the % numbers look **significantly** higher for YTD. **South Korea**: EWY **is up over 80%** before dividend and today's up from market news. **Hong Kong**: MCHI **is up over 40%** before dividend and today's up from market news. **Greece**: GREK **is up over 62%** before dividend. **Spain**: EWP **is up over 60%** before dividend and so forth.
Uh huh... and that's why Spain over **60% YTD** (EWP) Greece over **62% YTD** (GREK) Korea over **80% YTD** (EWY) China over 40% YTD (MCHI) Japan over 23% YTD (EWJ) France over 27% YTD (EWQ) etc.. **VXUS is up over 28% YTD with dividends. VTI over 15% YTD in comparison.**
I'm in markets, just not US markets. It's true that when the US has a downturn so will the world, *to an extent*, but if we kick out Brazil, we kick out China, and they shrug and make deals between one another and thrive without us... how exposed are they, really? I don't know enough about foreign stocks so I got ETFs. * AAXJ & EMXC in Asia * EZU, FEZ (Europe's STOXX 50 top 50 companies), EWL (Switzerland), EWP (Spain) in Europe * IEFA basically "everywhere that is not America".
YTD, if you factor in the evaporation of the value of the dollar, BTC really hasn't done much at all. Yet, had you put that passively into foreign ETFs like EWP or EWO, you're up 40%.
Just for perspective: 🇫🇷 Fitch lowered France's credit rating to A+ from AA- and revised the outlook to Stable from Negative due to high debt, a weak fiscal standing, and ongoing political uncertainty. EWQ has been zig-zagging and range-bound since early May. 🇪🇸 Standard & Poor's raised Spain's rating to A+ from A with a Stable outlook. EWP is almost up +60% this year.
Some of those Europe country ETFs (e.g., EWP and EWO) vs. SPY year-to-date have been crushing it.
The guy who manages most of my money has me in solid things like VOO, XLK, SCHG. I swing through my IRA. My current top holdings are EWP (Spain), SPMO (amazing momentum etf), EUFN, VIRTUAL and COF.
Same for my EWO (Austria), EWP (Spain), and EWZ (Brail) ETFs. These countries are going to benefit hard from the chaos 🥭 has unleashed.
$EWP (Spain ETF) has been one of my better performers YTD.
Lately I’ve had success with EPOL, a Poland focused ETF, and EWP, a Spain focused ETF. I see these countries as having growing potential, but I’m no economist.
Take a look at EWP EPOL DAX YTD and the inflows…. ;-)
NFA, but if you're looking for a potential place to park some funds, EWP, the Spain ETF, has not only fully recovered from the tariff-shock drop, but surpassed it. I nearly fell off my chair when I saw the YTD chart.
I'm in long-dated, ATM UUP puts, GLD calls, GLDM shares, a few foreign ETFs (EWP, the Spain ETF has not only recovered from the tariff-shock drop, but surpassed it!), 10k in euros, a few SPY September 505 puts, and some TBT calls and TLT puts in case we get another liquidity freakout and firms have to ditch bonds again from margin calls.
Take a look at EWP (Spain ETF), too. It's like all the tariff crap never happened.
I nearly fell off my chair when I saw EWP (the Spain ETF); almost back at highs after the dump. Options kinda suck, though, so I bought shares.
They spent years pushing Mastercard cards. You have to decline their credit card even if you already have it at every self checkout purchase. Walmarts MasterCard terms are predatory especially the EWP they try to push on everyone who activates. The interest rates on Walmarts credit cards are predatory as well.
I'm wondering if there is a futures play here we can do USD / something EWP (Spain) EWG (Germany) Etc..
EWP is installing their power generating tidal buoy off Portugal. Energy sector about to take the fuck off.
Your thinking isn't wrong. CDs are semi-illiquid. Depending on the EWP (early withdraw penalty) you lose more or less money for cashing in early. With broker CDs they aren't really illiquid but there is a generally loss for selling early. More importantly though CDs are incredibly tax inefficient. You have to realize the gains annually as income. That creates a massive drag. I'm doing a series on how problematic taxable fixed income is and what to do about it: https://www.reddit.com/r/IncomeInvesting/comments/14j82hw/preliminaries_on_taxable_fixed_income_taxable/ though right now the target audience is 59+ or FIRE. Anyway in general what the question is what is the CD for? If it is for short term spending goals it needs to be taxable. If it is for long term savings i.e, you want to hold bonds taxable for money you might need, permanent insurance. If it is for long term savings taxably you are less likely to need MYGAs. If it is for retirement then hold in the IRA. Let the goal dictate where it is held.
I’ve watched this one closely for the past 3 years. I’ve made money buying every time it hits 70 and selling every time it goes over 85. I’ll be a buyer around 65. West Frasier is fundamentally different than it was pre pandemic. They made a giant acquisition in 2021 by acquiring a company called Norbord. Which makes OSB and EWP. Their biggest public competition is Canfor, Interfor, Weyerhaeuser, Louisiana Pacific. Weyerhaeuser will have the lowest beta since it is mainly a timberland company. Their earnings do get juiced or dragged down by lumber though. Biggest private competitors are Huber, GP, and Irving that I know of. Huber is the top dog in the OSB market product wise. This company will not make money with lumber below 400. It is more nuanced than that, since southern pine has low margins no matter what whereas Doug fir is much more valuable. They have operations in both wood regions. But that has been the rule of thumb for the industry.
There are way more than 4 companies in this space. There are thousands of regional lumber producers far beyond the scale of a local lumberyard. There are however fewer players in OSB and EWP. Huber owns that market with the Advantech products. GP owns the cheap end of the OSB market.
The main problem with the EWP is the first and 2nd wave. Everything starts with 5 and followed with ABC. And now, it can be a big 3, a flat, a diagonal, everything.
I don't like "just because investing". In terms of CDs one of the huge advantages they have is the ability to stay in if the rate turns out to have been good and move to a higher rate if it isn't based on the early withdraw penalty. I'd look at cutoffs on the EWP to see where they are at, since many banks are sloppy here. For example 1 year might be 3 mo and both 3 and 5 year 5 mo in which case the 5 year is probably the sweet spot.
You don't have credit risk but you still carry duration risk, depending on the EWP. I like direct CDs a lot. But right now they are worse than corresponding bond funds. You aren't comparing apples to apples here.
Yes I think they will continue to increase. Direct CDs generally pay more than short term corporate bonds, right now they are paying less. That's on top of the fact I think interest rates quite likely go higher than the 2.5-3.5% the market is pricing in. You are going to want to go with direct CDs (not brokered) with lowish EWP so you can chase rates higher. 3 mo EWP and a sane interest rate would be my criteria. I did a series on CDs: https://www.reddit.com/r/IncomeInvesting/comments/czw8jv/direct_cds_vs_high_quality_bond_funds/
EWP 25p 6/17/22 Spain is the epicenter.
I maxed out I-Bonds this year and last. Recently bought 3 large brokered CDs through my Vanguard account. If you understand the conditions, you won't be able to beat the interest rates. Plan on staying with them until maturity. You can not simply take an EWP like a regular bank CD, get the balance and go elsewhere. Brokered CDs can only be "cashed in" by selling in the secondary brokered CD market. If interest rates are rising you will lose principal.They are FDIC covered and there is what is referred to as a "death put", similar to a POD benefit. If you have a joint Vanguard account, the death put applies to each owner. Interest is simple, not compounded and is usually paid twice a year. The hard part is deciding when to buy as the rates are rising. Competing banks and rates are listed. Be careful not to buy a Callable CD. It's all on the Vanguard website.
Man, I wish I saw that post while I was still working at a roof truss plant. We had nearly half a mil of EWP at current prices, and no yelling how many millions of regular lumber. We were literally running out of space to store it all. My boss claimed he was buying ahead for projects, but he was more than happy to buy full beds of OSB just to turn around and sell at a markup the same day, largely monopolizing the supply in the area due to his connections and power of the purse.
Pretty useless. At least you didn't waste my time with charts and big words and EWP shit. Appreciate that man
Just read an article on EWP charts and fuck me I hate TA articles "If it drops to 4150, it's gonna drop there, BUT if it goes up, it'll confirm it went up by going up. So whatever is made of the market in the coming weeks, the trends will be there and I don't know what the fuck is going to happen but I marked this chart for you" Guy probably makes bank tho
Just read an article on EWP charts and fuck me I hate TA articles "If it drops to 4150, it's gonna drop there, BUT if it goes up, it'll confirm it went up by going up. So whatever is made of the market in the coming weeks, the trends will be there and I don't know what the fuck is going to happen but I marked this chart for you" Guy probably makes bank tho
Just to be clear, it's impossible for a put option to have a delta of -1 and a theta of 0, right? I saw that some EWP puts were displaying those values on StreetSmart Edge but I'm assuming it's a rounding error or something to do with lack of volume.
I'm trying to do a DD about Lumber Gang but Melvinator hates me. Let's see if I can do a smaller one here. Husband is in the industry. There is not enough lumber for everyone and he’s been having hard conversations with builders who don’t get that they will have to slow down because product is running out. Here are how lumber futures have been doing. 5 Day – 9.45% 1 Month – 48.41% 3 Month – 69.36% YTD – 72.15% 1 Year – 359.39% If anyone knows how to invest in futures without receiving actual product I would love to know. Don’t want to be that guy that got a bunch of oil delivered to him. With how things are going we are going to continue to see a rise in lumber for at least through the summer. The biggest problem is obtaining Engineered Wood Products (EWP) and OSB. Home Depot has quadrupled the price of OSB over the past year. There is also a resin shortage that is needed to make these products. Timber is cheap but the bottleneck is sawmills. Either they have reduced capacity due to covid or they are switching business to OSB because it is more profitable. I’m looking at companies such as $BCC (38% last 3 months), $WY (23% last 3 months), $LPX (71% last 3 months). They have had great runs and are currently in a dip from the last few days. (Hopefully a dip and not the top). First companies that will be screwed sooner than later will most likely be home builders. They will soon realize they have been building houses for free and will get hit first. They try to hit a 35% profit margin. That margin is eroding by rising costs but they are under contract. Contracts last about 6 months. So expect their profits to go down. Unless they have been really good at guessing lumber futures and buying appropriately. Look at to 10 list of publicly traded stocks. Be careful with timing, they had big jumps last week. Bear case: The fed could finally raise interest rates which would decrease demand and let supply catch up. More investment can go into building out saw mills. Builders can get creative and use different materials. This is where steel gang can benefit. Supply could eventually catch up but it may take some time. This is a several month play for now. TLDR: Lumber has been on a great run and is getting more scarce. Buy lumber tickers such as $BCC, $WY and $LPX and puts on big home developers. Mid term play.
I work at a wood roof truss plant, it's actually higher than that. Lumber is about 3x the price it was this time last year and it's stoll rising. This increase also includes engineered wood products (big add structural beams). Like you said, not only are the prices higher, but it's harder to get the product now too. I just got a couple truckloads of EWP last week that I ordered in December. It used to be about a month for a truckload built at the mill, now it's 3months+ if in lucky. It makes it really hard to plan for upcoming projects when the salesmen wait until a week before delivery to tell me what they need.
We buy from HD and Lowes when lumber yards run out of something. Lumber hasn't been a huge problem for us for a couple months in VA. The big 2 are OSB (mostly 3/4 huber blue and advantech), and EWP (mostly 11 7/8" joist/LVL, and 18" LVL). Supposedly they're having supply issues with the resin that goes into OSB. It will all work out though.
They are doing a 30-35% increase on the price of their EWP as well. Weyerhaeuser just implemented their price increase today so I assume RFP will do theirs this coming week.