A suitable name for this weeks’ theme might be “High Prices: Welcome to Crazyland.”
It’s been over a year since we first started getting locked down due to coronavirus. Now over a year in and with vaccines available, we find ourselves not only in lockdown once again, but with daily case counts and positivity rates spiking higher than ever (in Ontario).
Continued lockdowns might have been predictable a year ago, but other unfathomables, such as $1200 lumber futures, not so much. If you follow the markets you might already know this, but if you just started considering a backyard renovation project this summer like a deck or fence, you’re in for a rude awakening. That is if you can even find materials available for your project. The prices are absolutely atrocious right now and will most likely remain so for the remainder of the summer and into the fall building season.
Another indication of craziness in the market (and in general) right now, but with seemingly no underlying reason, is the rise of cryptocurrency Dogecoin! Yes, the parody altcoin has seen its price skyrocket in the past week for no other reason apparent to me, then because Coinbase is listing publicly on the stock exchange and maybe because bitcoin has been going up as well? Weird stuff!
Here are this weeks’ reads below!
Not a Joke Anymore: Dogecoin | USA Today
From meme stocks to meme coins, it appears people have graduated from trading popular meme stock names like GameStop and AMC to meme-based altcoins like DOGE. There’s always an urge to ‘invest’ in things that will make you rich quickly, and the fear of missing out usually drives these price increases. Dogecoin, which only a couple of years ago was less than a penny per coin ($0.002) has been trading this week as high as 47 cents. This gives it an incredibly unbelievable market cap of around $47 billion dollars. Keep in mind too that there is theoretically no supply limit on this coin – so unlike bitcoin, there is potentially no scarcity factor. It will be interesting to observe how long prices remain elevated.
Skyrocketing Lumber Prices Shock Renovators | Global News
We’ve put some renovation projects on hold and likely many others have as well. With the price of building materials almost tripling in many cases for basic items like 2×4 dimensional lumber and sheets of plywood, it’s no wonder building projects have been paused for many. How much the pandemic has factored into things is unclear, but there is definitely a supply issue and increased demand for the time being. Hopefully, by next year we’ll see reasonable material costs return, but for now, it seems that similar to the pandemic, we’ll be looking at a ‘new normal’ in terms of lumber prices.
Ultimate Geoarbitrage Strategy | Millenial Money
With home prices going absolutely bananas, basically everywhere in Canada, it’s had me giving a little more thought to the idea of geo-arbitrage. The concept is essentially improving your lifestyle by moving to an area of the world with a lower cost of living so that your dollars stretch themselves further. You have more financial freedom, more time to relax and the potential to fast-track your retirement timeline. This concept is arguably more difficult in Canada, where a lot of the local real estate prices have increased in tandem and there are less potential cities and towns to explore due to the geographic and climate challenges, but it’s still possible. The article above goes over an interesting and detailed account of what this type of journey might look like for a couple in the U.S., where the options for geo-arbitrage are fairly abundant.
Check out the latest articles on the homepage and have a great week!
