StJoe (JOE) Shocks-takes charge, exits Florida bldg.

Shelly, you are a complete stock hound. No wonder you kept mixing real estate comparisons with Wall Street. This is your true passion. See if you can get Joe down to $10/ share, and I'll buy.

JOE has been getting rid of its excess baggage over the past couple of quarters. It wouldn't surprise me to see JOE run itself into the ground to make it an attractive <read: cheap> target for a private equity buyout--that will probably happen in a about....in about....<shaking Magic 8-Ball> it says..."Ask Again Later" :cool:

Shelly....You have to go on another link ( message of the stock mkt) for my complete thought process. In an abbreviated note: 1) value relative to book 2) stocks act like they are washed out 3) Next Fed move is to lower rates 4) all the bad news is out or completely understood 5) the stk mkt is about PERCEPTION PERCEPTION PERCEPTION and not reality. Perception says all the negative news is in the stocks.
My target rate of return is 50% plus in 2-3 years at a minimum. I think covered calls is NOT the way to play these stocks.....you will be assigned very early on in the game and miss the upside. covered calls are more appropriate for stocks with high volatility that are at or near their highs. you sell at the moneys or slightly out of the moneys to give you some premium income and don't mind being assigned. covered calls should be used for some downside protection or to increase premium income......I am not generally a fan of covered calls. My exit strategy is to have a moving stop if I am lucky enough to have early gains. If I am wrong I will sell when the stocks go 3% below their lows in july/August. Those lows btw are my buy points as you will note in my previous posts. I want very tight stops on this housing play because this is speculative (its not like buying pg or jnj). If they break those lows of july/ August the stocks will go much lower, imo. As far as a trainwreck...that has already occurred. I completely disagree with you about big guys and info in the pipeline and hedge funds etc....The markets are too big and liquid for manipulation. That only works on illiquid stocks and that is not the case with housing stocks...they are very liquid. Besides there is a tremendous amount of very sophisticated monitoring that is done by regulators to identify unusual trading activity. It is not worth the risk to get nabbed trading on fancy info, the govt has deep pockets to prosecute and the penalties getting caught are extremely onerous. Also with the advent of Reg FD ( full disclosure) of several years ago there is very little info that is not public, in general. It is a crime for companies to release info selectively. They have to make a statement publicly, to keep the playing field level...that is why you see all the pre-releases. You give too much credit to Wall Street research and analysis.....in reality they are morons !!!! There are very few money managers that out perform indexing. You have to stay ahead of the curve and sometimes that means being early. BTW, I saw Cramer said he would buy housing stocks when the Fed lowers. I think by the time it becomes conv wisdom that Fed is going to lower, housing stocks will already have moved up off the lows by 25%. Sorry for the long winded post but I love the subject !!

Shelly,
All kidding aside, don't be surprised if there is consolidation in the building industry AND if a private equity fund does buy a homebuilder. Also don't forget the possibility of a leveraged buyout by the management of one of the companies. A good case could be made for buying you know what in the winter ! ;-)

This doesn't sound very good for owners at WC or WS, of which I am one. How will this effect the beach club, golf club, and development of the rest of the property. JOE will definitely not have its eye on the ball as far as owners are concerned. They will now be preoccupied with layoffs and restructuring. The owners weekend for WS owners should be Very interesting. Stay tuned.

Do you all not remember that Seaside was originally in the home building business? It only lasted a few years as I think Mr. Davis got tired of wasting money on trying to learn the home building business.

Yes, I am a homeowner in Watersound (end user, always planned on keeping it) and think this could be a good thing. I hope they concentrate on the infrastructure now. It will all be turned over to the Homeowners Association eventually as has been the case in Rosemary Beach and other developments.

BeachBummett,
Thank you for clarifying this. I did not know the history of Seaside and this issue. This is probably a good thing the more I think about it. Hope to see you at the Home Owners weekend meeting October 14 and 15. It should be a lively debate !!

BeachBummett,
Thank you for clarifying this. I did not know the history of Seaside and this issue. This is probably a good thing the more I think about it. Hope to see you at the Home Owners weekend meeting October 14 and 15. It should be a lively debate !!

I will be there goofer44 (as well as the SoWal Soiree) and I am sure it will be a lively debate.😱

Are you aware of the new Watersound yahoo board? If not let me know and I will pm you about it. It has been a huge sucess and we are planning on a Friday night pre-homeowners meeting to get ourselves prepared for the homeowners meeting. I am sure it will be interesting.

Look forwarding to seeing you there.

Shelly....You have to go on another link ( message of the stock mkt) for my complete thought process. In an abbreviated note: 1) value relative to book 2) stocks act like they are washed out 3) Next Fed move is to lower rates 4) all the bad news is out or completely understood 5) the stk mkt is about PERCEPTION PERCEPTION PERCEPTION and not reality. Perception says all the negative news is in the stocks.
My target rate of return is 50% plus in 2-3 years at a minimum.

I went back and checked the thread. You mentioned a bunch of HB, but from what I gleaned you have positions in DHI @ 20; HOV @ 25; and JOE @ 48.

You need to make room on your calendar for the Credit Suisse 2006 Homebuilding Symposium on Monday & Tuesday, September 11/12, 2006. All of the biggies will be there and most of their presentations will be broadcast live on the Internet. Check homebuilder's websites for their date & time. Should be an interesting couple of days.

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Well don't do this often :floor: but here I go. I'm really glad for the discussion here. I don't really see anything too surprising or anything that indicates that Joe is crashing and burning. They create a development (or a place as they call it), They build out the initial stages to establish the fiber of the community. Construction costs go up and building is not as lucrative as it was. The community(s) is/are established and they have lots of vacant land sitting around undeveloped. Residential sales are in a low part of the cycle and will come back again. Are they charting new communities for the next spurt :idontno: Are they planning on developing commercial entitlements which is still strong in many areas? :idontno:

There's many types of real estate investment - bulk land sales, land subdivision, industrial, commercial, residential, land leasiing, commercial leasing, hotel/motel development, senior housing etc. Many investors only think in terms of residential real estate investment and for them, maybe their sky is falling right now but there are many ways for an investor to move their money in the real estate realm.

I really don't see JOE shutting down, getting out of real estate or the airport going belly up from this info. I merely see a shift in their strategy to adapt to the current market. Smart move on their part. Unfortunately, they don't need the same employee base for where they're going now and people are losing their jobs which isn't good for the short term. These people may need to move from the area to find work or maybe the increase in unemployment will attract new types of business or industry? I don't know the answer but this is just business. Not a meltdown, not the beginning of the end, just smart business on their part. Can they screw up, sure. That's why it's investment but I'm sure they have some of the best advisors that money can buy. Again thanks for the good info.

Shelly;
Thanks for the info on the Credit Suisse conference. Add to my list of housing stocks KB HOMES (KBH) cost 39 LOWES (LOW) cost 26.15 HOME DEPOT (HD) cost 33.50. I have cancelled my GTC orders in the other HB stocks. My plays in the housing sector are : DHI HOV JOE KBH HD LOW. These represent 4 % of my portfolio. Not enough to become rich but enough to have a rooting interest. I may buy MASCO (MAS) if it gets back to 26.

Shelly;
Thanks for the info on the Credit Suisse conference. Add to my list of housing stocks KB HOMES (KBH) cost 39 LOWES (LOW) cost 26.15 HOME DEPOT (HD) cost 33.50. I have cancelled my GTC orders in the other HB stocks. My plays in the housing sector are : DHI HOV JOE KBH HD LOW. These represent 4 % of my portfolio. Not enough to become rich but enough to have a rooting interest. I may buy MASCO (MAS) if it gets back to 26.

You certainly do have faith in the homebuilders... but at only 4%, it's not enough to break the bank, but just enough to purchase a ticket on what I think will be a thrilling ride. 😀

JOE up 10% with a huge climb at approx. 1:00 EST...

Any thoughts???

http://www.marketwatch.com/tools/quotes/quotes.asp?symb=JOE&siteid=mktw

JOE has been getting rid of its excess baggage over the past couple of quarters. It wouldn't surprise me to see JOE run itself into the ground to make it an attractive <read: cheap> target for a private equity buyout--that will probably happen in a about....in about....<shaking Magic 8-Ball> it says..."Ask Again Later" :cool:

I can't believe that I'm saying this but I agree with Shelly. I don't know if they are trying to " run themselves into the gruond" but surely they realize or at least are being told repeatedly that they are inept and need to make a drastic change. With all due respect Sueshore, they are horrible builders, not any better at property management and only so-so developers. A private equity take out would be their best solution. At least they are concentrating on developing until that happens. It is pretty interesting to watch it play out.

JOE up 10% with a huge climb at approx. 1:00 EST...

Any thoughts???

http://www.marketwatch.com/tools/quotes/quotes.asp?symb=JOE&siteid=mktw

Short squeeze. (@ 20% Short/14.48 Short interest ratio)

I'll take the gains anyway they come !!! Massive tax cut taking place in the form of plunging oil prices.