2 replies to this topic

[ChartSmarts]

Looks like a perilous decline ahead for the Builders, longer term.

[selecto]

[TTHQ Staff]

Yup, the news is out. .....AFTER the TA.
2009 should be about that first 250 level on the HBs

July 24 2007: 2:00 PM EDT

NEW YORK (Reuters) -- Countrywide Financial Corp. Chief Executive Angelo Mozilo said the U.S. housing market is unlikely to recover before 2009, as lenders and homeowners work through oversupply, stagnating home prices and the excesses of recent lax lending standards in much of the mortgage industry.

"It just takes a long time to turn a battleship around," Mozilo said on a conference call discussing quarterly results for Countrywide, the largest U.S. mortgage lender. "This is a huge battleship, and we're headed in the wrong direction."

Calling it "a gut feeling," Mozilo said, "It's going to take the balance of this year to get this thing to look like it's slowing down (and) 2009 to head into the other direction."
Foreclosures dip, but that won't last-report

Earlier, Countrywide said second-quarter profit sank 33 percent to $485 million, or 81 cents a share, from $722 million, or $1.15, a year earlier. It also cut its 2007 earnings forecast to $2.70 to $3.30 a share, down from $3.50 to $4.30 in April and $3.80 to $4.80 in January.

Shares of Countrywide (down $3.50 to $30.56, Charts, Fortune 500) tumbled about 10 percent in active New York Stock Exchange trading. Volume was more than triple the stock's daily average with about two hours left in the session.

Other big mortgage lenders, including Bank of America (Charts, Fortune 500), Wachovia (Charts, Fortune 500) and Wells Fargo (Charts, Fortune 500), have taken hits in their mortgage business due to the problems in the subprime market.