What Happened In the Housing Market – Suddenly, A Broken Narrative

What Happened to the Housing Market

Housing Market Intro and Summary What happened in the housing market in December, 2024? Suddenly, the housing market is mired in a broken narrative after a brief drop in bond yields created a (fake) boost in November. The weakness showed up in stubbornly high mortgage rates and the dour commentary from earnings reports. The data … Read more

What Happened In the Housing Market – A Boost from Rates

What Happened In the Housing Market – A Boost from Rates

Housing Market Intro and Summary What happened in the housing market in November, 2024? October’s reckoning transformed into a rebound with a boost from a sharp drop in long-term interest rates. The partial recovery came just in time for the seasonal strength in the stocks of home builders. The housing data for October showed mixed … Read more

What Happened in the Housing Market – Reckoning

What Happened to the Housing Market

Housing Market Intro and Summary What happened in the housing market in October, 2024? A reckoning that I anticipated finally came in the form of sharply lower prices for the shares of home builders. After resisting rising mortgage rates for a month, the stock market lost its appetite. Earnings have brought a dose of reality … Read more

What Happened In the Housing Market – A Rate Cut Rally Stalls, Sentiment Bottoms

What Happened to the Housing Market

Housing Market Intro and Summary What happened in the housing market in September, 2024? Existing home sales fell into a deeper downturn while new home sales maintained an uptrend from recent troughs. Rate cuts are helping to bottom out sentiment for builders. However, great anticipation of a rate cut from the Federal Reserve gave way … Read more

Recalibration Time for Bulls and Bears – The Market Breadth

Recalibration Time for Bulls and Bears - The Market Breadth

Stock Market Commentary In announcing the official end of monetary tightening, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell mentioned some form of the word “recalibration” nine times from his introductory statement to the Q&A portion of the press conference. Specifically, “….it’s a process of recalibrating our policy stance away from where we had it a year ago, … Read more

What Happened in the Housing Market – Sales Stabilize, Stocks Sharply Rebound

What Happened to the Housing Market

Housing Market Intro and Summary What happened in the housing market in August, 2024? Financial markets quickly threw out a major downgrade from Citigroup for the housing sector. Hopes for rate cuts from the Federal Reserve continued to impact both the data and stock prices. While the on-going decline in mortgage rates has failed to … Read more

What Happened In the Housing Market – Looking Forward to Rate Cuts

What Happened to the Housing Market

Housing Market Intro and Summary What happened in the housing market in July, 2024? July started with a major downgrade from Citigroup for the housing sector. The downgrade at the time confirmed the implications of a bust for the spring selling season. My lamentations about the bust seemed confirmed by further deterioration in the housing … Read more

Overbought Conditions End with Blow-Off Tops – The Market Breadth

blow-off top (Credit: Giuseppe Milo, Giuseppe Milo Geyser - Iceland - Black and white street photography, https://www.flickr.com/photos/87690240@N03/23894931910)

Stock Market Commentary The latest overbought period lasted two days, a typical duration. However, the start of the period was atypical given the fuel from historic heroics from small cap stocks. The end of the overbought period was remarkable by delivering some of the clearest topping signals of the year. Key indices that soared into … Read more

What Happened in the Housing Market – A Spring Selling Season Bust

What Happened to the Housing Market

Housing Market Intro and Summary What happened in the housing market in June, 2024? The broadening weakness I described in my previous Housing Market Review continued and confirmed a spring selling season bust. The data in June delivered a picture of a sales slowdown accompanied by increasing affordability squeezes despite inventory increases. Housing Stocks The … Read more

What Happened to the Housing Market – Broadening Weakness, Except In California

What Happened to the Housing Market

Housing Market Intro and Summary What happened in the housing market in May, 2024? Homebuilders suddenly soured on the prospects for the housing market. In my previous Housing Market Review, I pointed out signs of topping and sales headwinds. The data in May delivered a picture of broadening weakness as a follow-through to the warnings … Read more