Rick Pendergraft says we won’t see an economic recovery before one of the housing, auto or labour markets stabilize. Friday’s nasty unemployment data and earnings reports from GM (NYSE:GM), Ford (NYSE:F ) suggest that our hopes are resting on real estate.

New home sales rose by 2.7% in September, according to the Commerce Department. Andrew Snyder says this is an important sign of a rebound in the property market. And that means adjusting your portfolio to include real estate investment trusts (REITs) like Post Properties (NYSE:PPS) and American Campus Associates (NYSE:ACC).

Why inflation is bad news for the high street. You’d expect the slump in the housing market to take its toll on the high street. And indeed it has.

I’m reading a strange little book this week. It is called The Fall of Northern Rock and is written by an ex-employee of the now nationalised bank called Brian Walters. I’m not quite sure why Walters was the one commissioned to write the book, for the simple reason that he doesn’t seem to have any more inside knowledge into the affair than the rest of us.

The base metals were mixed again on Wednesday. Copper had some big ups and downs but in the end was little changed as it finished at $3.6206/lb., down a penny and a half.

Would-be first-time buyers have had a hard time of it. They want to buy a house, but time and again many are thwarted by the same problem. They can’t afford to buy a house. Not being able to afford something is a very common problem in markets.

A surprise to few, luxury homebuilder Toll Brothers Inc. (TOL) posted its second consecutive quarterly net loss today (Tuesday), though the results were better than Wall Street expected.

It never rains, it pours. Hot on the heels of the Bradford and Bingley saga, we wake up today to the news that mortgage lending has hit a record low.

Ah! This is more like it! You know how the official, Consumer Price Index (CPI) inflation figure was 3.0% last month? Well, I don’t know about you, but that felt a bit low to me. I buy things.

“Captain, we’re running out of fuel!” “Don’t panic! Just burn up what little we have. And burn it faster!” Gordon Brown, crisis buster extraordinaire, has a solution to the energy crisis. Are you ready?