Yes and Not Yes

Spanish Property Auction Flop Brings Down Gavel on Housing Boom:

Thanks to Spain’s slumping property market, house buyers are as popular as movie stars — and they can cause even more excitement.

Reporters outnumbered bidders as lot No. 1 hit the slate in Europe’s first “Dutch auction” for real estate last weekend in Madrid. Of 216 lots, 194 were withdrawn when they weren’t purchased at the reserve price. One man, investor Manuel Sainz, bought almost half of everything sold.

“Next stop Hollywood!” laughed Sainz, head of property company Las Terrazas de San Blas SA, as he fought off the press after buying 10 properties at discounts of as much as 30 percent.

The event shows the depth of Spain’s housing bust after prices tripled in the past decade. In January, the government’s housing policy director, Rafael Pacheco, called the slowdown “moderate and orderly” after January sales volume fell 27 percent from a year earlier as the global credit shortage forced banks to reduce lending.

Sounds as good as ever a reason to short the Spain ETF, EWP. Also consider the fact that the slumping U.S. economy will have an effect on many other countries around the world.