The bigger risk isn’t just surviving the downturn, it’s being caught flat-footed and understaffed when the market takes off. Even great operators can miss their window if they’re not building talent, capacity, and customer relationships before up cycles.

My Search for the Perfect Crystal Ball

I spent the first decade as an entrepreneur chasing the economic Rosetta Stone for the building products industry. Every quarter I’d latch onto a new set of data points, convinced this was the key. Mortgage interest rates. Job growth. Wage growth. Housing starts. New and existing home inventory. Fed policy. The 10-year bond. Political leadership. Every 90 days I was off chasing the next indicator like a dog after its tail. When that didn’t work, I leaned on economists. I’d hold my breath for the next Economic Prophet to give their take, only to cast them off as court jesters – or worse, traitors – when they inevitably got it wrong. Give me some credit, I never stooped to palm reading or hiring an oracle. But the frustration was real. It felt like trying to win a game where the rules kept changing.

A Better Way, Thanks to Mentors

Two mentors helped me reframe the problem. The solution was so simple it was almost embarrassing. Stop trying to outsmart the Fed or predict politics. Stop obsessing over lagging data points that only confirm what you already know. Instead, track the publicly traded stocks that most accurately mirror your customer base. Not upstream manufacturers. Not the lumber mills or the shingle producers. The end markets. The companies selling directly into the spaces you serve. For Misura Group, that means residential and commercial building product supply chains. Why stocks? Because a stock price is a composite of everything: hard data, future expectations, sentiment, and risk. It reflects current earnings, backlog, orders in the pipeline, analyst forecasts, and where smart money is placing bets. It’s not perfect – nothing is – but it’s a forward-looking indicator that cuts through the political noise.

The Stocks I Watch

Here’s the short list I track religiously:

• DR Horton: $116 → $170 (+45%)

• Lennar: $105 → $132 (+25%)

• Pulte: $98 → $134 (+36%)

• Toll Brothers: $104 → $139 (+33%)

• Builders FirstSource: $107 → $131 (+22%)

• Home Depot: $365 → $420 (+15%)

• United Rentals: $709 → $950 (+34%)

The big builder stocks and United Rentals are all up 30–40% since June 1, 2025. That’s not noise. That’s a strong, flashing-green signal for residential and commercial demand over the next 12–18 months. Think about what’s baked into those prices. Builders don’t get rewarded unless they’re selling homes, moving product, and expanding backlog. Rental companies don’t climb unless contractors are gearing up for projects. When their stocks rise sharply, it’s because the market sees more orders, more demand, more revenue on the horizon. That’s what makes them a leading indicator. They’re future-oriented. They price in not just today’s sales, but tomorrow’s.

Why Not Just Watch the Fed?

Yes, the Fed matters. Interest rates matter. But Fed watching is like listening to politicians argue at a dinner party – you get lost in the noise, and it’s never as clear-cut as it seems. Meanwhile, the stocks tell you how those rates are actually impacting demand. They reflect the boots-on-the-ground reality of whether consumers are buying homes, whether contractors are renting equipment, and whether suppliers are moving product. Stocks are less political and far more pragmatic.

Threading the Needle

Here’s the needle to thread: keep your operators focused on the controllables – service levels, inventory management, pricing discipline, sales execution – while you, as a leader, keep one eye on the stock dashboards.

Don’t drown your team in Fed commentary or housing policy debates. They can’t control that. What they can control is how prepared they are when the wave of demand comes. And make no mistake – it’s coming. The market is signaling strength. If you believe the numbers, 2025 and 2026 are shaping up to be significant growth years in the building products supply chain. That means right now is the time to tighten your team, sharpen processes, and ensure capacity is in place. Because when demand spikes, the winners aren’t the ones who saw it coming. The winners are the ones who were ready.

The Bottom Line

Every leader has to balance control with awareness. Too much control, and you’re blind. Too much awareness, and you freeze. But if you focus your team where they can win while using stock performance as your macro compass, you’ll be ready to capitalize when the tide turns in your favor. And based on what we’re seeing in the markets, it’s about to turn hard. Make sure your team is ready to handle the significant increase in sales headed our way.

Click Here To Reach Out

Hire Smarter™
Tony Misura