Najarian says new uses of TARP funds to buy up to $500 billion dollars worth of mortgage securities backed by Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac should stimulate home buying. Already shares are starting to climb. “I like Centex [CTX] and Ryland [RYL] for unusual volume in options contracts,” he says.

Centex (CTX), Lennar (LEN), KB Home (KBH), Horton (DHI) and Pulte (PHM) look so cheap they are scrumptious ... until you look at their credit lines, which make them seem downright expensive.

Cramer: Expect Retail Sector to Stall: Unemployment and a struggling housing market will keep the group down, says Jim Cramer.
Click here to watch the video.

Cramer based his conclusion on an analysis of the charts of the seven largest home builders, including Toll Brothers (TOL), Centex (CTX), D.R. Horton (DHI), Pulte Homes (PHM), Lennar (LEN), MDC Holdings (MDC) and KB Homes (KBH).

Cramer: Housing Bill Will Revive BofA:
Now that President Bush has signed the housing bill, the banking system is closer to a bottom, says Jim Cramer.

Click here to watch the video.

For those of you who are high risk traders, you might want to dip your toe in Centex (CTX), DR Horton (DHI), KB Homes (KBH) or Toll Brothers (TOL), Adami counsels. If you’re going to play housing stay away from those with a lot of debt, adds Karen Finerman. Of the names mentioned above Centex is the least levered.

Cramer: Sprint Signals an Up Market
Sprint is an example of how the market's pendulum is back up again, says Jim Cramer.

Click here to watch the video.

I think the market has priced in the housing crisis, says Karen Finerman. It's probably okay to dip your toe in the water. But if you want to play housing only look at companies with great balance sheets such as MDC Holdings (MDC) and Centex (CTX).

In a recent post, Cramer shouted “Hail to the Homebuilders.”

“Sure the banks are down. But you know what is more important? The homebuilders are up. These are the lead indicators, and in case you have been on Mars, they bottomed many months ago.

Now every pullback has to be bought -- take a look for instance at how buyable the Centex (CTX) pullback was. Every time the group comes in, buyers seek them out.

Take this morning. I am sitting here reading the awful Hovnanian (HOV) number, every bit as bad as the Centex numbers, and all I can think of is, "How much will this dog go up on these crummy numbers?"

The answer is: a ton. It is incredible because there is nothing here to grasp. Sure the cash flow is much better than I thought. But does anyone think these companies are going to prosper? The cash flow was up because they cut prices big and dumped homes. That's where the cash flow came from.

Soon, at this pace, these stocks will no longer be reflecting bankruptcy; they will be reflecting earnings growth even though the cash flow comes from earnings shrinkage!

The whole thing is a little Alice in Wonderland like. You can't get this group to down. It just won't go down.

In the end, I don't care as much about the homebuilders themselves as I care about the impact on the banks. HOV showed, like CTX, that if you cut prices big, you sell homes. That's a great lesson for the banks. They ought to take it!”

3 month
-buy 12/21

same

checking housing financial

same as kbh

Stricter controls on the borders, as purposed by Republicans, would hurt construction companies, especially residentail ones such as Centex, due to a decreased workforce.

Stricter controls on the borders, as purposed by Republicans, would hurt construction companies, especially residentail ones such as Centex, due to a decreased workforce.

overblown homebuilder, declined but still overvalued

got to start shorting these guys somewhere

Another crappy homebuilder...