Our chart of the week displays an asset we consider one of the best barometers of the U.S. real estate market... a share of stock in St. Joe Company (JOE).St. Joe is a huge real estate developer. With nearly 600,000 acres of Florida land, it's one of the largest private landowners in the country... so its share price tends to rise and fall with investor sentiment toward U.S. real estate.
As you'd expect, shares have done a lot more "falling" than "rising" in the past several years. JOE fell more than 80% from mid-2005 to last year's market bottom. But over the past year, JOE has put together a series of higher highs and higher lows. JOE's "California cousin," Tejon Ranch (TRC), sports a similar uptrend.
JOE's new recovery is no cause to expect rising real estate prices. It's simply a sign things are "less bad" in real estate than they were a few years ago.
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