The Layman's Guide to Lumber & Panel Trading

No doubt you found my web site because you are looking for a real lumber and panel market forecast rather than regurgitation of what has already happened.

Other lumber and panel reports are full of historical information telling you a little bit about a lot of things. I will take you out of the past and into the future…telling you a lot about the most important things.

My focus is on softwood lumber and panels used for framing in the housing industry.

The products I forecast are the backbone of the housing industry. They are the forest products used to “rough-in” a house…the walls, the floors, the roof and the deck. It’s the foundational material that distinguishes the American home from a thatch hut or mere brick and mortar.

Layman’s Lumber and Panel Guide, known in our industry simply as Layman’s Guide, is what you need to keep your competitors, and yes even your suppliers and customers, one step behind you; eating your dust.

My objective is to forecast or project turning points in the market. Specifically, turning dates…not prices… but times when you can expect market reversals to occur.

What I will give you is a head start on the rest of the field. Imagine being in a 100-yard dash and your starting block being 50 yards down the track. There is not a human being alive that could beat you, and even if they did, it wouldn’t be by much.

I am frequently asked, “How good are you?” “How accurate are you?”

My sarcastic answer is, “Good enough that I can charge for my service, but if I were perfect we wouldn’t be having this conversation.” If I were right all the time, I wouldn’t have to mess with this web site, would I?

My realistic answer is, “I am right 80% of the time.”

The lumber and panel market prices change daily but are reported twice weekly. My work is based upon weekly price changes so my projections are also weekly based, meaning I project which week you can likely expect trend reversals. 80% of the time I am either right on the money or within one week.

I refer to my primary market evaluation tool as the Estimated Decision Point, or EDP. I can project turning dates as much as one year in advance. As you might suspect, this is a very valuable tool in the lumber industry, and there is nowhere else to get it but in the Layman’s Guide.

Happy Trading!

Matt Layman