Housing Market Review (July, 2019) – Key Divergences Emerging Under the Surface of the Seasonal Top

The iShares Dow Jones Home Construction ETF (ITB) continues to pivot around its slowly uptrending 50DMA.

Housing Market Intro/Summary In the last Housing Market Review, I pointed out how the stocks of home builders were still making a surprising push against the expected seasonal top in their shares. Yet, I still expected iShares US Home Construction ETF (ITB) to remain constrained to a pivot around its 50-day moving average (DMA). Soon … Read more

Realogy and Amazon.com Partner Up But Does It Matter?

Realogy (RLGY) is struggling to avoid a resumption of its vicious downtrend.

Two weeks ago I threw up a chart of Realogy (RLGY) just to have something bearish to show among a group of bullish charts. I wondered why this company of real estate agents and brokers was in a persistent decline while housing-related stocks were generally holding up well. On July 23, Realogy rolled out what … Read more

Lennar Hit Hardest By the Weight of Tepid Housing Starts

Lennar (LEN) continues to suffer post-earnings weakness. Its close at 200DMA support marks a closing 4-month low.

My wait for an entry point to buy Lennar (LEN) continues. On a day with multiple warning signs about the U.S. economy from companies like Csx Corp (CSX), the Census Bureau piled on with lukewarm data on housing starts. While single-family housing starts for June increased month-over-month by 3.5% to 847,000, housing starts decreased on … Read more

Rate Cut Cheer Not Yet Enough to Push Stock Market To Overbought – Above the 40 (July 12, 2019)

After a bullish run-up, AT40 (T2108) struggled all week to break through the overbought threshold.

AT40 = 68.2% of stocks are trading above their respective 40-day moving averages (DMAs) AT200 = 54.9% of stocks are trading above their respective 200DMAs (essentially matches the 2019 high and is a new 10-month high)VIX = 12.4Short-term Trading Call: neutral (caveats below) Stock Market Commentary After the report on June jobs, financial markets got … Read more

A Widening Breakout for Home Builders

The iShares Dow Jones Home Construction ETF (ITB) gained 1.7% and broke out to a (marginal) 12-month high.

The breakout for home builders started with M.D.C. Holdings (MDC). MDC raised guidance and put strong emphasis on the positive expectations for its next earnings report. With analysts overwhelmingly bearish on the stock, the stock had plenty of upside surprise potential. The pent-up demand created a tremendous upward surge. Additional home builders are joining what … Read more