For America's 1,000 big home builder companies, it's been two years of rough going and it will continue to be that way--partly, because many of the things top managers believed they had to be good at don't count a lick when the supply and demand equation gets turned inside out. Home builder sentiment indices from the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market index showed a hope in the first part of the year, only to be tasered in March by subprime-itis. Builder optimism flashed hope again mid-year, but then as mortgage defaults metastasized into the farthest reaches of the anatomy of global finance.
