Bonfire in Timber (Prices)!

Prices for physical lumber have now slumped to their lowest level of 2025:

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Timber, a key commodity to determine the health of the economy, slumps lower. (Source: Barchart)

Timber is among several commodities declining this year. Oil, down 15%. Wheat minus 10%. Egg prices have gotten over the avian flu and are down 80%.

Lower commodity costs are good for consumers. They offset tariff costs to wholesalers. And they are good for this year’s political pet issue, “affordability.”

But they also reflect a sore spot in the overall economy. Lower demand for timber, a key component in housing, means builders aren’t building.

Many economists interpret lower timber prices as a sign that the economy is already in recession.

But there’s another factor to consider. The housing market remains frozen, with existing homeowners with 3% mortgage rates sitting tight – and keeping prices high. And for the first time in US history, the average age of first-time homebuyers is above 40.

~ Addison

P.S. Tomorrow, we’ll review the pullback in bitcoin and stablecoin stocks. And how the correction fits into our “Dollar 2.0” thesis on Grey Swan Live! with Mark Jeftovic and Ian King.

Since the October 21st Payments Innovation Conference hosted by the Fed, the regulatory environment has continued apace, despite the government shutdown, the SEC, IRS and CFTC have all updated guidance.

Even bitcoin and crypto bulls will tell you that a sound regulatory environment is good for the digital asset space. The Treasury under the Trump administration is counting on stablecoins to mature enough that the U.S. dollar preserves its reserve currency status in the burgeoning digital economy.

If you’re new to the Grey Swan Investment Fraternity, you’re going to want to join us Thursday, November 19, 2025 at 2pm EST/11am PST as we get into the weeds a little and identify opportunities opening up quickly.

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Then on Friday, November 20, 2025 at 2pm EST/11am PSTwe’ve invited our friends at Prime Financial Services back to help you with tax planning for your investment portfolio ahead of the holiday season and closing out the trading year 2025.

Prime’s Nick Buhelos will join us again to make sure you maximize your investment returns – by walking you through the correct financial structure you need totake advantage of explicit IRS business rules that apply to individual investors.

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If you have requests for new guests you’d like to see join us for Grey Swan Live!, or have any questions for our guests, send them here.

Prices for physical lumber have now slumped to their lowest level of 2025:

Turn Your Images On

Timber, a key commodity to determine the health of the economy, slumps lower. (Source: Barchart)

Timber is among several commodities declining this year. Oil, down 15%. Wheat minus 10%. Egg prices have gotten over the avian flu and are down 80%.

Lower commodity costs are good for consumers. They offset tariff costs to wholesalers. And they are good for this year’s political pet issue, “affordability.”

But they also reflect a sore spot in the overall economy. Lower demand for timber, a key component in housing, means builders aren’t building.

Many economists interpret lower timber prices as a sign that the economy is already in recession.

~ Addison

P.S. Tomorrow, we’ll review the pullback in bitcoin and stablecoin stocks. And how the correction fits into our “Dollar 2.0” thesis on Grey Swan Live! with Mark Jeftovic and Ian King.

Turn Your Images On

If you have requests for new guests you’d like to see join us for Grey Swan Live!, or have any questions for our guests, send them here.

Trump and Powell are no buddies. They’ve been fighting over rate cuts all year—Trump demanding more, Powell holding back. Even after cutting twice, Trump called him “grossly incompetent” and said he’d “love to fire” him. The tension has been building for months.

And Trump now seems ready to install someone who shares his appetite for lower rates and easier money.

Trump has been dropping hints for weeks—saying on November 18, “I think I already know my choice,” and then doubling down last Sunday aboard Air Force One with, “I know who I am going to pick… we’ll be announcing it.”

He was referring to one Kevin Hassett, who—according to a recent Bloomberg report—has emerged as the overwhelming favorite to become the next Fed chair.

Here we sit — investors, analysts, retirees, accountants, even a few masochistic economists — gathered beneath the leafless monetary tree, rehearsing our lines as we wait for Jerome Powell to step onstage and tell us what the future means.

Spoiler: he can’t. But that does not stop us from waiting.

Tomorrow, he is expected to deliver the December rate cut. Polymarket odds sit at 96% for a dainty 25-point cut.

Trump, Navarro and Lutnick pine for 50 points.

And somewhere in the wings smiles Kevin Hassett — at 74% odds this morning, the presumed Powell successor — watching the last few snowflakes fall before his cue arrives.

With U.S. stocks trading at about 24 times forward earnings, plans for capital growth have to go off without a hitch. Given the billions of dollars in commitments by AI companies, financing to the hilt on debt, the most realistic outcome is a hitch.

On a valuation basis, global markets will likely show better returns than U.S. stocks in 2026.

America leads the world in innovation. A U.S. tech stock will naturally fetch a higher price than, say, a German brewery. But value matters, too.

As copper flowed into the United States, LME inventories thinned and backwardation steepened. Higher U.S. pricing, tariff protection, and lower political risk made American warehouses the most attractive destination for metal. Each new shipment strengthened the spread.

The arbitrage, once triggered, became self-reinforcing. Traders were not participating in theory; they were responding to the physical incentives in front of them.

The United States had quietly become the marginal buyer of the world’s most important industrial metal. China, long the gravitational center of global copper demand, found itself on the outside.

And Trump now seems ready to install someone who shares his appetite for lower rates and easier money.

He was referring to one Kevin Hassett, who—according to a recent Bloomberg report—has emerged as the overwhelming favorite to become the next Fed chair.

Spoiler: he can’t. But that does not stop us from waiting.

Tomorrow, he is expected to deliver the December rate cut. Polymarket odds sit at 96% for a dainty 25-point cut.

Trump, Navarro and Lutnick pine for 50 points.

And somewhere in the wings smiles Kevin Hassett — at 74% odds this morning, the presumed Powell successor — watching the last few snowflakes fall before his cue arrives.

On a valuation basis, global markets will likely show better returns than U.S. stocks in 2026.

America leads the world in innovation. A U.S. tech stock will naturally fetch a higher price than, say, a German brewery. But value matters, too.

The arbitrage, once triggered, became self-reinforcing. Traders were not participating in theory; they were responding to the physical incentives in front of them.

The United States had quietly become the marginal buyer of the world’s most important industrial metal. China, long the gravitational center of global copper demand, found itself on the outside.