ONE-TWENTY TWO: Trading Financial Markets
Exploring the poetry in financial markets for students of money and economy since the year 2000.
The last Housing Market Review covered data reported in August for July, 2016. New home sales soaring to a fresh post-recession high made the big headline even as sentiment among home builders remained essentially flatline for the year. This time around, new home sales cooled off month-over-month as builder sentiment finally showed life with a … Read more
The last Housing Market Review covered data reported in July for June, 2016. At the time, a disappointing GDP report sharply rejected the iShares US Home Construction ETF (ITB) off a 9-year high. Fortunately, there was very little follow-through to the selling. When ITB rallied strongly on new home sales, the ETF recovered most of … Read more
Today, the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA) released its quarterly report on U.S. home prices for Q2 2016. Home prices rose 5.6% but each month in the quarter increased “only” 0.2% sequentially. This monthly pace represents a substantial slowdown from the first quarter where monthly gains were 0.4%, 0.5%, and 0.8%. The FHFA speculates that … Read more
In past Housing Market Reviews, I observed a notable shift in housing activity from the West to the South. I have wondered aloud whether this disparity comes from economic choices moving households from relatively expensive markets in the West to relatively more affordable ones in the South. It turns out the IRS has some of … Read more
The National Association of Realtors (NAR) delivered some history-making news in its quarterly Metropolitan Median Area Prices and Affordability and Housing Affordability Index for the second quarter of 2016. According to the NAR “…for the first time ever, a metro area – San Jose, California – had a median single-family home price above $1 million.” … Read more