Does this chart indicate anything unsettling to you?

Markola

Markola

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It shows that gas prices are low again more than anything else. In addition:

  • baby boomers are retiring in big numbers and a lot of them want to retire traveling in RVs, so a prime market for RVs now comprises a bigger share of the population.
  • the economy is doing well, which gives positive job numbers.
  • the US housing market is rebounding
What were you expecting it to mean?
 
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Well, it's just a hunch about the future with some numbers behind it, which is what this particular sub-forum seems for. Your points are very valid but another narrative based on other data points is starting to weave together in my mind as:

- It's getting to be a decade since the start of the last recession.

- Consumer debt spent for luxuries (to wit, the ultimate big ticket American luxury item - RVs) is trending way up again and, historically, that can mean overconfidence.

- The rest of the world's economy is anemic and US corporate profits are really not that stellar.

- Large cap stocks are ahead of small caps lately, which often happens near the end of a cycle.

- PE Ratios are high historically and interest rates have been kept super low, so is there much room left for this bull to run?

- Some of the fizz in stock markets in the last few years has been provided through stock buybacks, not real growth, and those programs are winding down.

I admit to only a hunch but I just can't ignore some of the signals I'm sensing at this point in the long bull market we've enjoyed in stocks and bonds. I am not saying that I will do anything about it, but the RV boom feels Great Gatsby-ish to me.
 
I would use this RV indicator to short the stock market. You can't lose !

Personally though, I believe in the Superbowl indicator.

or the Bangladesh Butter production indicator which suggests a very strong buying opportunity:

What does Bangladesh, India, have to do with the U.S. stock market? Plenty, according to some pundits. Using their calculations, taking the change in butter production in Bangladesh and multiplying it by two will give you the exact percentage by which the S&P 500 Index will change in the year ahead. Based on that, a 5% increase in butter production leads to a 10% hike in the S&P. The same statistics are believed to hold true on the downside.

Get ready to buy. Our most reliable technical indicator—one that has historically been 99% accurate—is suggesting that stocks are poised for a major breakout.
Bangladesh butter production surged in February, as moderating grain prices allowed Bangladeshi dairy farmers to boost production by getting higher milk yields from their existing stock of cows. Meanwhile, butter production in neighboring India dropped significantly in February, as a change in government farm subsidies forced Indian dairy farmers to cull their herds. With Bangladeshi butter production set to rise further, we should be looking at a massive rally in the S&P 500 throughout March and April.


http://www.bitlanders.com/blogs/the-bangladesh-butter-indicator-says-buy/2866536
 
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The only sensible way to buy one is to buy it used. WE are the 3rd owner of a motorhome that while it is 23 yo only has 50k miles on it. Each time the owner sells it they get half the price. So the first owner paid 56 for it new, the next paid 28 and we paid 14. Now it's worth not much more then half. YOu can get crazy and spend a fortune on those things.
 
Markola said:
Well, it's just a hunch about the future with some numbers behind it, which is what this particular sub-forum seems for. Your points are very valid but another narrative based on other data points is starting to weave together in my mind as:

- It's getting to be a decade since the start of the last recession.

- Consumer debt spent for luxuries (to wit, the ultimate big ticket American luxury item - RVs) is trending way up again and, historically, that can mean overconfidence.

- The rest of the world's economy is anemic and US corporate profits are really not that stellar.

- Large cap stocks are ahead of small caps lately, which often happens near the end of a cycle.

- PE Ratios are high historically and interest rates have been kept super low, so is there much room left for this bull to run?

- Some of the fizz in stock markets in the last few years has been provided through stock buybacks, not real growth, and those programs are winding down.

I admit to only a hunch but I just can't ignore some of the signals I'm sensing at this point in the long bull market we've enjoyed in stocks and bonds. I am not saying that I will do anything about it, but the RV boom feels Great Gatsby-ish to me.
Click to expand...
If you want to time the markets, RV sales are as good an indicator as anything..;)
 
I'd guess it indicates that it's a bad time to buy an RV.
 
Teacher Terry said:
The only sensible way to buy one is to buy it used. WE are the 3rd owner of a motorhome that while it is 23 yo only has 50k miles on it. Each time the owner sells it they get half the price. So the first owner paid 56 for it new, the next paid 28 and we paid 14. Now it's worth not much more then half. YOu can get crazy and spend a fortune on those things.
Click to expand...

Good friend of mine recently bought a 28' Ford powered RV that is 26 years old for $5,000. It has 7 new Michelin tires and new brakes on it and the engine/trans has 44,000. The inside was rough, but all the gas appliances work.

After pouring another $5K into it (fixed A/C, new counter tops, window blinds, mattresses, and a whole lot of tidbits), he has a pretty nice unit.

I'm sure he could sell it for $5,000 when he's tired of fixing things on it.
 
Excellent! They laughed at Edison, Jobs, Einstein and Buffet (well not Buffet so much) too so I am surely onto something! Eh, maybe not but my point is that the best investors know that the herd is usually, exactly and with great precision, wrong. So when the herd is focused on buying brand new RVs as one symptom of Americans generally running up needless debt, well, since the 1970s trouble follows within a couple of years if you follow those numbers and recall the years with bear markets. No one knows, of course, and I am prepared either way as a diversified index fund investor first, and a compulsive armchair macro economics prognosticator second.
 
Interesting. My friend just told me to buy an RV like her to travel. I'm never into RV. I like camping though. RVs bubble? :D


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Yes, you can count on a recession sometime in the future.

Besides the things you posted, perhaps RV sales are driven in part by masses of Boomers retiring and hitting the road. Did you normalize your indicator by the population of RV-aged people ?
 
MasterBlaster said:
Besides the things you posted, perhaps RV sales are driven in part by masses of Boomers retiring and hitting the road. Did you normalize your indicator by the population of RV-aged people ?
Click to expand...
Another factor, sales in the past few years reflect a pent up demand due to a lack of supply. RV production came to a virtual standstill in 2008/09 and many RV manufacturers went out of business.
 
It absolutely predicts with high accuracy that the market with either go up or go down from here.

Personally, I find my magic 8 ball to be equally accurate, plus it's portable.

My sources say yes.

:confused:?
 
The oil and gas business swallowed up a lot of them also as migrant oil workers could not find housing in the Dakota's, Wyoming, Colorado and West Texas. Now there are thousands of units abandoned/for sale in these areas an one can find a good deal rather cheaply.
 
Markola said:
- It's getting to be a decade since the start of the last recession.

- Consumer debt spent for luxuries (to wit, the ultimate big ticket American luxury item - RVs) is trending way up again and, historically, that can mean overconfidence.
Click to expand...
Just two comments WTR to your data points. First, the amount of time since the onset of the last recession has no bearing on the current state of the economu or the onset of the next recession. Second, the household total debt service ration - the % of income households are spending on their current debt - is the lowest it's been in a half century. Here's a chart that shows it since 1980

DSRQ42015.PNG


and here's a blogpost explaining the number. Households have the capacity to borrow for their new RVs and much more.
 
MichaelB said:
First, the amount of time since the onset of the last recession has no bearing on the current state of the economu or the onset of the next recession.
Click to expand...

Some people believe that timelines of recessions and non-recessions can be stochastically characterized. If that's the case then the long growth span since the last recession gives one pause as being on the tails of the growth time distribution.
 
aja8888 said:
The oil and gas business swallowed up a lot of them also as migrant oil workers could not find housing in the Dakota's, Wyoming, Colorado and West Texas. Now there are thousands of units abandoned/for sale in these areas an one can find a good deal rather cheaply.
Click to expand...

Yup, come on down (or up) the deals can't be beat.
630x420.jpg
 
I have a friend forced into early retirement by the 2008 recession who has just trained and certified as a mobile RV repair guy. He and his wife sold their California home and are somewhere in the country in their new/used RV. This is good news for him.


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I can only hope. Lots of things need fixin' on the house, and contractors aren't returning calls like they did in 2008. I called three different driveway pavers, with what is at least a $10K job, and none of them called back.

Whereas in 2008/09, when we also had a lot of work done, the phone wouldn't stop ringing.

Markola said:
trouble follows within a couple of years
Click to expand...
 
Amethyst said:
I can only hope. Lots of things need fixin' on the house, and contractors aren't returning calls like they did in 2008. I called three different driveway pavers, with what is at least a $10K job, and none of them called back.

Whereas in 2008/09, when we also had a lot of work done, the phone wouldn't stop ringing.
Click to expand...

Even back then there were some guys who were not particularly responsive. It seems that they are the first ones to complain about how slow things were. :facepalm:
 
Amethyst said:
I can only hope. Lots of things need fixin' on the house, and contractors aren't returning calls like they did in 2008. I called three different driveway pavers, with what is at least a $10K job, and none of them called back.

Whereas in 2008/09, when we also had a lot of work done, the phone wouldn't stop ringing.
Click to expand...


That's the reason why my husband and I are DYIers in the first place. In Silicon Valley back in the 90s, if we need to do something less than $10k, they don't even bother. They told me they looked at the house value in our neighborhood and thought nothing of quoting $100k as fair.


Sent from my iPad using Early Retirement Forum
 
To tally our favored recession indicators so far, we have:

Spiking RV sales (more research needed on boats and yachts)
Butter in Bangladesh
The Superbowl (Is this AFC vs NFC winners?)
Magic 8 Ball says "Maybe So!"
The Contractor Calls-Returned Frequency Index.
Oh, and I have a 74.3% confidence level that Master Blaster agreed with me that this has been an unusually long bull market historically, which might mean something statistically.

What else? The reliable "My nephew and/or shoe shine professional gave me stock tips alarm"? I will go out on a limb and say that any of these are at least as good as the Fed's prediction in 2007 of what was about to happen.
 
The only market predictor that ever worked for me was beaver cheese futures.

As a data point, we bought an RV for $9k in 2003, kept it 10 years or so, and sold it for $7k. But it was an Argosy Airstream born in 1976! :)
 
Beaver cheese... Never heard of it but my Magic 8 Ball says "You may rely on it" so it goes on the list! :)
 
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