Housing, Upside Down Logic and Greatest Manager

Update on the housing: Home Sales Plummet in 38 States in 3Q.

• The once-booming real estate market's persistent weakness over the past year has reined in expectations for economic growth but hasn't been severe enough to offset a rising stock market, lower gas prices and improved consumer expectations.
  
  The National Association of Realtors reported Monday that sales of existing homes fell in 38 states during the summer. Sales retreated to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 6.27 million units nationwide, down by 12.7 percent from the same period a year ago. Nevada, Arizona, Florida and California led the declines.
  
  Home prices also dropped: The realtors' survey showed that the midpoint price for an existing home sold during the summer dipped 1.2 percent year over year to $224,900. Some 45 metropolitan areas saw home prices decline.

WSJ has a survey: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB116370236302025327.html?mod=home_whats_news_us

And another worthwhile reading article: Is the Housing Bubble Collapsing? 10 Economic Indicators to Watch.

And did you read Bill Fleckenstein's The upside-down logic of Wall Street?

And finally, here's a nice article on Bill Miller on Fortune: The greatest money manager of our time

• As it stands now, Miller has compiled one of the most remarkable records in the history of investing: His fund has outperformed the stock market for 15 straight years. That's right, 15 years, starting in 1991 - during George Bush the elder's presidency - through the tech bull market, then the crash and now the recovery

Here's a tip.

Think!!!

• "What we are really trying to do is to think about thinking," Miller tells me. "Understanding how groups behave is central to understanding how complex adaptive systems - such as the stock market - work."

Cheers!