This Is What Sideways Feels Like

This is what sideways feels like. We dive onto the banana slide in the back yard and tumble off the end into the grass. Our knees hurt and we don't go back to the line to do it again. Then the sting wears down, the water is spraying, everyone's having a good time, and we throw ourselves down onto the banana slide again... rinse repeat... rinse repeat...

I haven't posted in the past couple of days because... nothing... has... changed... Nothing. Nothing happened today that we couldn't see before today, and the same was true yesterday and the day before that, and the same will be true tomorrow and I bet the day after that. Nothing fundamental is changing right now. The only arguably fundamental thing that's changing right now is investor rationality. It's exceptionally low.

Buy the dips, sell the highs. It's like taking candy from a baby right now.

Here's a chart of housing inventory, courtesy the reporting companies and a post at http://www.calculatedriskblog.com from last year through this year -- notice what sideways looks like. Hint: sometimes it looks up, sometimes it looks down, but it's really just sideways. Expect this through 2013.