Excess Returns · Saturday, July 11, 2026
Jim Paulsen reports that housing starts are at "lousy" levels and have worsened recently, describing the situation as nearly as bad as during the 2009 housing crisis. He connects this lack of activity to the weak job market, contrasting it with reported "explosive earnings."
“And if I look at the next chart, just to broaden out to some other indicators. You know, this is housing starts. And it's just is lousy. And not only is it lousy, it's just gotten lousier here in the last couple of times. It's fallen quite dramatically.”
“You know, it's about as bad as it was in the worst of the housing crisis in 2009. There's just no activity going on there.”
“Does that jive with what we see with, you know, explosive earnings in the economy? No. Does it jive with what I just showed you about how the job market looks? Absolutely. It does.”