monetary policy

What Happened in the Housing Market – Increasing Pressure

What Happened to the Housing Market

Housing Market Intro and Summary In my previous housing market update, I described an enduring bear market in homebuilder stocks alongside weak sales, depressed builder sentiment, and constrained affordability. Unfortunately, that underlying story remains intact. Increasing pressure from higher mortgage rates, weakening builder sentiment, and stressed homebuilder stocks overshadows the month-over-month gains in housing starts … Read more

What Happened in the Housing Market – A Bear Market Encore

What Happened to the Housing Market

Housing Market Intro and Summary This edition of “What Happened in the Housing Market” is truncated again because the shutdown of the Federal government. Yet, the shutdown did not prevent the stocks of home builders from outperforming the rest of the stock market for the month. Optimism over lower interest rates, improved affordability metrics, and … Read more

What Happened in the Housing Market? – Government Shutdown

What Happened to the Housing Market

Housing Market Intro and Summary This edition of “What Happened in the Housing Market” is truncated because the shutdown of the Federal government prevented the release of data from the U.S. Census Bureau. The Census Bureau is responsible for reports on housing starts and new home sales. The remaining data in this month’s post depicts … Read more

Home Builder Stocks Return to a Bear Market: A Setup for the Seasonal Trade Ahead

The iShares US Home Construction ETF (ITB) returned to a bear market.

The bearish to bullish reversal ended for home builder stocks with a return to bear market territory. Today, October 9, 2025, the iShares U.S. Home Construction ETF (ITB) dropped under the threshold that defines a bear market: 20% below the all-time high (see chart below). The 2.6% slide on the day is part of a … Read more

From Euphoria to Oversold In A Day? – The Market Breadth

AT50 (MMFI) plunged to its 5th lowest close of the year on a test of the intraday low from August. Will AT50 finally achieve official oversold conditions this year?

Stock Market Commentary If you followed December’s deterioration in market breadth and/or paid attention to the inflation numbers and the smoke signals from the Federal Reserve, today’s market sell-off does not surprise you. What surprises me at the time of writing is the complete collapse in market breadth. The stock market essentially plunged from euphoria … Read more