The World Famous "Fence Wizard": Challenges still ahead for the back half of 2008

Thursday, July 24, 2008

Challenges still ahead for the back half of 2008

Starting with the good news:

Steel, Oil, Coal and other commodities have fallen off their highs. This is the first substantial sign of price deterioration in months. Gas could return to $3.50 a gallon if trends continue and steel products may begin to cheapen in the coming weeks.



Challenges ahead:
It is unclear if commercial credit will survive the scourge of the residential mortgage market and loans have been tightened for corporate borrowers. There will be no additional interest rate cuts by the Federal Reserve as monetary policy sits squarely between the battle of raising liquidity and controlling inflation with a stronger dollar.

Listen carefully: The housing market is not about to recover just yet; trends are still getting worse and Freddie Mac's mortgage survey just revealed that bets are now being made on a Fed interest rate hike in the near future....

Mortgage rates spiked this week on inflation fears, with the benchmark 30-year, fixed-rate loan soaring more than a quarter percentage point to a national average 6.63%, its highest level in nearly a year. (Click here for more)

For each set of good news it appears we can find an equally bad set of negative news. But this seems to be better than the onslaught of all bad news that we identified months prior.

Capitalism and certainly the construction market are built upon private property and credit. Both have been badly compromised in the short term and both will return to those who can survive the current period.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

We have yet to see a decrease in steel prices.

Anchor Fence said...

I think it will be a while before we see a decrease in steel prices. We are a leader of Michigan Fence Companies and have yet to see a sign of aluminum fence price decrease.

Maybe if the overall economy of America improves and buyers increase, this decrease in price will happen.

buy aluminum pool fencing online said...

While industry prices are going up... BOUNDARY PRICES ARE STAYING LOW! This is what makes us one of the leading <a href="http://www.buyaluminumfence.com>ornamental aluminum fence dealers</a> in America!

vinyl fence company in Michigan said...

Our company specializes in vinyl fencing in Michigan but we do not change our steel prices much regardless of minor price increases on raw material. There is always room for minor increases in pricing.

ABC Fence in Saginaw Mi said...

Crazy to look back at 2008 and see how the economy has been effected since then. Good thing our Saginaw Michigan Fence Company lasted through the economic downturn.

Boundary Fence and Railing systems said...

When most companies are turning to lower cost/lower quality material to balance -the excuse of- a bad economy, America's leading vinyl fence supplier remains strong and confident in our high quality -and still costly- vinyl fence products!

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Unknown said...

I love this photo! It reminds me of an old metal fence in Calgary.

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