Podcast: Why Lumber Crashed After its Incredible Boom
Originally Published by: Bloomberg — November 8, 2021
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Joe Weisenthal and Tracy Alloway analyze the weird patterns, the complex issues and the newest market crazes. Join the conversation every Monday and Thursday for interviews with the most interesting minds in finance, economics and markets.
These days, commodities around the world are on a tear. But earlier this year, there was a lot of fixation on one in particular: lumber. Lumber went absolutely parabolic in the spring before collapsing rapidly. What's interesting is that this collapse was not due to a slowdown in housing per se. Housing is booming. Instead, it was a variety of idiosyncratic factors (including lumber storage availability) that caused the wild move. So, for this episode, we invited back Stinson Dean, the founder and CEO of Deacon Lumber, to explain what happened, and what lessons there are for the rest of the commodities complex. He also offered his view on hiring, and why some companies seem to have an easy time hiring, while others have found it so difficult.