Author: kkosman

  • US Housing Starts: Dec and Full-Year 2018

    Widely-anticipated real estate data out of the USA emerged this week. Looking in-depth, Madison’s cautions “beware how you view the data”, as some analysts could be interpreting a much-overestimated pessimistic view of the latest monthly data and that for 4Q 2018 US Housing Starts: December, FY 201 Long-awaited data Tuesday showed the number of US…

  • Madison’s Lumber Reporter and Keta Kosman

    Earlier this year, Madison’s was asked to speak at the North American Wholesaler Lumberman’s Association regional meeting in Montreal, QC, held in conjunction with the fabulous Montreal Wood Convention. Unfortunately, due to huge piles of work needing to be done — a happy problem to have — Madison’s is not able to attend that event…

  • Softwood Lumber Supply-Demand Balance Restored, Prices Mostly Flat: Feb 2019

    Prices of a few standard construction framing North American softwood lumber commodities did bounce up last week, but overall most of the market stayed flat. New orders were encouraging if not guarded, as end-users did their best to survive on existing inventories rather than ordering beyond immediate needs in fear of prices dropping again. This…

  • US Home Sales, Housing Prices: January 2019

    The US housing market keeps slowing down, with January having marked the sixth consecutive month of declining sales. US existing home sales fell -1.2% in January to their worst pace in more than three years, said the National Association of Realtors® (NAR) Thursday, as persistent affordability problems have put a harsh chill in the real…

  • OVERVIEW OF CURRENT NORTH AMERICAN LUMBER MARKET: 1Q 2019

    Please find below the results of Madison’s Lumber Reporter‘s investigation into questions regarding a possible difference between North American softwood lumber prices into USA and those domestically within Canada, in view of the latest US softwood lumber duty. OVERVIEW OF CURRENT NORTH AMERICAN LUMBER MARKET: 1Q 2019 The question at hand: · is there apparently…