Up here in Maine, it's Patriots Day, an official holiday celebrated only here and in Massachusetts having to do with the Minutemen and Lexington and Concord, not the football team. They ran the Boston Marathon this morning (I have no idea, nor interest in, who won), and the Red Sox took on the Orioles in a rare 11 a.m. weekday game (Sox won 12-1, sweeping the four-game home stand from the Orioles).

Elsewhere, however, the world turns, so I've been watching the builder stocks sink sharply as the rest of the market sells off on fears that the banks may not be in such good shape after all. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, meantime, delivered a speech declaring ostensibly that a whole lot of Americans are really stupid when it comes to managing their finances, not much of a revelation since a whole lot of Americans are really stupid, period.

But the highlight of this day so far has been the barrage of angry emails from global financial people that have cluttered my email box protesting an email alert from Dr. Robert Shiller's MacroMarkets LLC. These finance types, apparently, do not like spam. But this was really not spam, per se. It was the announcement that MacroMarket's MacroShares Major Metro Housing exchange traded funds would conduct an initial public offering auction on April 28 and begin trading on May 11 on NYSE Arca. I'm up to about three dozen emails now, some simple "such-and-such is out of the office," but most are angry "REMOVE ME FROM THIS LIST" missives sent back to, I presume, the whole mailing list. I am probably not alone in this sump of misdirected communication.

Still, it is of note that these ETFs will soon begin trading. Back at the beginning of 2008, Dr. Shiller, the Yale economics professor half of the Case-Shiller Home Price Indices, told Les Shaver in a Big Builder cover story that builders ought to be able to hedge their inventory to guard against wild swings in the housing market (see a related Q&A here).

Starting May 11, anyone, builders included, will be able to trade UMM, for "up" major metro housing, and DMM, for "down" major metro housing, both of which will track the S&P/Case-Shiller Composite 10 Home Price Index. This will mark the first time investors will be able to play the national housing market without actually taking a stake in futures or swaps or issuers with credit risk.

Presumably, an options market will develop for these ETFs as well, which would theoretically provide builders with a decent, relatively low-cost hedge against further or future downturns or a way to ratchet up gains when housing prices rise. At the very least, it will be interesting to watch these ETFs as the housing market recovers.

Which, we hope, occurs sooner than later. We also do hope that Bernanke succeeds in his efforts to smarten up the idiots who bought half-million dollar houses on $50K--or lower--annual incomes, or whose credit cards are so strung out on $300 sneakers and other similar necessities that they are crying to the government for personal bailouts.

We could sure use a few people like those Minutemen right about now. So happy Patriots Day to all. Maybe some of it will rub off.

Wall Street & Maine is written by Big Builder Senior Editor/Online Bill Gloede, who works from his home office on the Maine Coast.