Centex...'Chairman and CEO Tim Eller said in a press release: "The housing market continues to adjust rapidly and Centex is executing its balanced approach to effectively manage these transitions. Cancellation rates that were well outside of historical levels diminished our earnings visibility this quarter.'----------------

I would have expected with all of the hoopla regarding housing that the market's (Thomson, others) and management's expectations would have been crafted based on a discount to historic norms, NOT historic norms. Perhaps the market has already accounted for this (but I would have thought analysts would have it in revised estimated), and their stock price today will not be adversely affected. But, to even mention historic norms regarding cancellations is ludicrous, IMV. The statement should have read, that the cancellations went beyond our forecasts which discounted historic norms...that discount, however, was not enough.

PHO - The water index... seems to be doing some interesting stuff lately. Before it was the straggler to PBW (Wind & Solar), and both had been dropping since May.

Why is PHO on such a take off (Jacuzzi maybe?) and what are the alternatives? Maybe buying some land in northern Ontario with a spring on it?

http://www.dignam.com

In Europe, meantime, the water business is booming — and so are investments. The world's first water fund, launched by Geneva-based Pictet Asset Management in 2000, has risen 40 per cent since its start, compared with the MSCI World index's 27-per-cent gain.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20061011.wwaters1011/BNStory/Business/home

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601109&sid=aiLA0vVSfX.o&refer=home

Oct. 12 (Bloomberg) -- The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission's general counsel and his top deputy may be excluded from probes into the collapse of Amaranth Advisors LLC and stock- options backdating at Broadcom Corp. because of potential conflicts of interest...............
Full Story Above
General Counsel Brian Cartwright represented Broadcom Corp., a chipmaker that may have granted options at artificially low prices, before joining the SEC, according to a list of financial interests he disclosed as part of his government appointment. Andrew Vollmer, the agency's deputy general counsel, previously advised Amaranth, the hedge fund manager that lost about $6.5 billion last month on natural-gas trades.
------------------------------------------An interesting story--foxes in the hen house?

"Global wheat prices surged to 10-year highs earlier this week after Australian officials warned the country's harvest could be cut in half."

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6046626.stm

Rob McEwen, CEO USGL awarded "Most Innovative CEO Award" from Canadian Business Magazine.

http://www.kitco.com/pr/1267/article_10132006090936.pdf

M3 continues to run up!

http://www.nowandfutures.com/key_stats.html

WATER SCARCITY CROSSING NATIONAL BORDERS
Lester R. Brown

http://www.earth-policy.org/Books/Seg/PB2ch03_ss6.htm

Historically, water scarcity was a local issue.

It was up to national governments to balance water supply and demand. Now this is changing as scarcity crosses national boundaries via the international grain trade.

Since it takes 1,000 tons of water to produce one ton of grain, importing grain is the most efficient way to import water.

Countries are, in effect, using grain to balance their water books.

Similarly, trading in grain futures is in a sense trading in water futures.

Water, Water, Everywhere...
hmmm...here is an idea... let's all get rich trading the ONLY commodity absolutely necessary to maintaining life on the planet...Water!. Business Model, Item #1: The famine-ravaged sub-sahara Africans will be our first customers.
And I thought only (HPQ) was ethically challenged. Anyone thought about developing the "water industry" as a goodwill, non-profit gift to mankind?

http://tinyurl.com/ynhcpz

Why is it that Iraq is buying overpriced US wheat?

Strongest Sales Week of the Year
Spurred by Iraq's 300,000 MT HRW purchase in early October, weekly U.S. commercial sales reached a high for the current marketing year. YTD SRW sales are 69 percent more than this time last year.

http://www.uswheat.org/commercialSales/doc/D8A143429491C107852572060045D277?OpenDocument#

"We will be buying American wheat ... but maybe not now. American wheat is good and tasty, but it is also expensive," said Abdul Hadi k. Al-Hamiri, an Iraq Ministry of Trade official and one of a group of trade officials who on Tuesday were visiting the Kansas City Board of Trade, the world's largest futures market for hard red winter wheat.

http://today.reuters.com/news/articleinvesting.aspx?view=CN&symbol=ADM.N&storyid=231343+26-Sep-2006+RTRS&type=qcna

Jawad said American supplier Archer Daniels Midland Co. (ADM.N: Quote, Profile, Research) was able to offer attractive pricing.

"We got good prices from ADM," she said.
----
AUSTRALIAN PM HINTS AT CHANGES FOR AWB'S EXPORT MONOPOLY

The government has given its strongest indication yet that the Iraq kickbacks scandal could see disgraced wheat marketer AWB (ASX:AWB) stripped of its prized export monopoly.

Prime Minister John Howard Thursday hinted the company's single desk trading status was in for a big shake-up after Commissioner Terence Cole hands down his report next month into the $290 million in illicit payments AWB made to the regime of Saddam Hussein.

http://www6.lexisnexis.com/publisher/EndUser?Action=UserDisplayFullDocument&orgId=586&docId=l:518155648&topicId=14429&start=4&topics=single

Something tells me breakfast will be more expensive next year.

http://www.world-grain.com/newsfinder.asp?Action=UserDisplayFullDocument&orgId=586&docId=l:518155801&topicId=14429&start=1&topics=single