Last month, the monthly Random Lengths Framing Lumber Composite Price returned to pre-Superstorm Sandy levels, triggering a 10% border tax for August. “It is becoming increasingly difficult to square the sharp drop in lumber prices with the ongoing surge in U.S. homebuilder stocks,” grumbles Scott Barlow at The Globe and Mail. In a post entitled If U.S. Housing’s back, Where is Lumber?, Barlow asks “if the future’s so bright, how do we explain Scotia Capital analyst Benoît Laprade’s recent downward revision in his lumber price forecast in light of ‘unexpected weakness’”? While the author points out that virtually every analyst remains bullish on forestry stocks, he concludes “it is highly unlikely that a new housing boom is on the horizon.” Traders meanwhile will be closely monitoring an improved tone in U.S. lumber markets in evidence over the past ten days.