ONE-TWENTY TWO: Trading Financial Markets
Exploring the poetry in financial markets for students of money and economy since the year 2000.
Housing Market Intro and Summary What happened in the housing market in April, 2024? After four months of growing more positive, home builders proceeded into the spring selling season thanks to drag from the South. In my previous Housing Market Review, I pointed out a positive start to the spring selling season. April painted a … Read more
Housing Market Intro and Summary What happened in the housing market in March, 2024? Home builders grew more positive and greeted the spring selling season with a resurgence in housing starts. In my previous Housing Market Review, I pointed out breakouts in the stocks of homebuilders and a bottoming in existing home sales. Both developments … Read more
Housing Market Intro and Summary In recent months, the housing market experienced several impacts from declining mortgage rates. An accelerating improvement in consumer and builder sentiment point the path toward a strong spring selling season despite on-going issues of affordability and inventory availability (in the existing home market). While housing starts pulled back from November’s … Read more
Housing Market Intro and Summary May’s housing market was remarkably strong and represented the peak velocity of the spring selling season. June followed up with more relative strength but a slight sequential cooling as mortgage rates continued a march back to the top of the recent range. Housing starts, new home sales, and existing home … Read more
Housing Market Intro and Summary The Spring selling season looked like it started strong for new home sales. The data for April reveal a story evolving differently. Absolute inventories rose for both existing and new homes and yet sales declined. Housing starts also suffered a setback. Median prices of homes soared, especially for new homes, … Read more
Housing Market Intro and Summary A little over a month after Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell suggested that the housing market would soon normalize, mortgage rates have increased and the stocks of home builders have generally gone nowhere. The National Association of Realtors projected much stronger growth in existing home sales this year than in … Read more
“We are confident our positive trajectory will continue as not only did our fourth quarter net new contracts increase 45% over last year but we have seen our sales pace accelerate, with December up 54% and January increasing 77%. We are solidly positioned with a backlog of 3,439 sold homes, an increase of 66%, along … Read more
Stock Market Commentary Sellers beat a hasty retreat from the stock market as another bearish signal enjoyed a fleeting existence. The last bearish period lasted about three days. The previous bearish period barely survived a day. The stock market’s ability to quickly wipe away bearish signals is impressive. The buying force over the last week … Read more
The grinding bear market in financial markets has quickly created what I am calling “A Culture of Collapse.” The collapse is on vivid display in the stocks of home builders and other related housing and construction stocks. I cataloged the collapse in housing-related stocks that took on dramatic form two days ago. The iShares Dow … Read more
Housing Market Intro/Summary The short-term outlook for the housing market is clouded by the current global turmoil generated by the coronavirus. The housing data discussed below were all collected before the virus came to the forefront of the minds of Americans. While demand for housing in the U.S. should remain strong (and certainly times like … Read more