Here are today’s gold stock screens and data, along with cycle conditions and projections for gold and HUI index, and Chart of the Day...
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Housing
Housing Fundamentals Improved, But Not Enough
Housing data in the past couple of months has been mixed. Lagging closed sales data shows prices declining. The problem with that is that the most current data represents sales closed in November, which for the most part were sales that went under contract in September. That tells us nothing about the current market....
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Housing Outlook Clouding Up Again, And It’s Not Just Supply
Housing data over the past month has weakened. Part of that is normal seasonality, but the drop in contracts on existing homes in September was the worst in percentage terms since the housing collapse began. Although I believe that the supply problem is overblown, the last thing the market needs is further weakening in...
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Glimmers of Housing Hope In Mortgage Applications Data
Purchase mortgage applications rose 6.4% last week according to the Mortgage Bankers Association and major media outlets. As always, the media report only the seasonally adjusted data fed to them by the MBAA. Rarely should a week to week change have any seasonal effects, although last week would be an exception because the week...
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Did The NAR Lie About August Pending Home Sales?
Data released today by the Mortgage Bankers Ass. suggest that housing demand is again cratering. In the last week of September mortgage purchase applications were down about 12% versus the same week last year. This is similar to the difference at the end of August, when the drop was about 13%. Chart and data-...
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Home Sales Contracts Better than Media, NAR report
The mainstream financial media is widely misreporting the NAR’s Pending Home Sales data this morning, simply parroting the NAR’s seasonally manipulated data. As it turns out, the NAR is screwing its own pooch because the actual, not manipulated data is actually much better than the seasonally smoothed numbers imply. That’s not to say sales...
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Housing Picture No Darker
The article is an excerpt from the Wall Street Examiner Professional Edition Housing Update for subscribers. Scroll to the end for the subscriber link to the complete report. Housing data for this month suggests that the usual seasonal uptick in prices has ended. Data is mixed as to whether the seasonal decline that normally...
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Housing Time Bomb Goes Tick Tock Tick Tock
A couple of data points reported today marked a tick and a tock on the housing market clock. The Mortgage Bankers Association Mortgage Applications Index release was weak but not explosive. The FHFA (Federal Housing Finance Agency) monthly data on home sale prices was up, but meaningless. The FHFA data is after the fact price...
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Housing Data Paints Bleak Picture
Housing data for this month suggests that the usual seasonal uptick in prices has come to an end at a lower high than last year. Contracts are falling out at record rates as insolvent banks blow up deal after deal in the mortgage process. On the other hand, there are lots of cash buyers...
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Builder Optimism Misplaced
Homebuilder Confidence in U.S. Rises More Than Estimated, NAHB Index Shows trumpeted the Bloomberg headline this morning. But the component numbers tell a different story. The Wells Fargo/NAHB Housing market index is a regular component of my regular housing market reports to subscribers of the Wall Street Examiner Professional Edition. Housing, though far less...
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Housing Indicators Show Lower Seasonal Peak
Two housing market indicators released over the last two days suggest that the market is making a seasonal peak at a weaker level than last year, but that the rate of decline is slowing. Mortgage purchase applications have been slipping in June following a small decline in the week ended June 17. They remain...
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Housing Market Tanks Again, Say Builders
Home builders said the housing market went from dead to deader in early June. The NAHB’s present conditions index fell from 15 (revised down) to 13 (on a scale of 0-100, with anything below 50 being negative). Model center prospective buyer traffic fell 2 points to 12 (on a scale of 100). These numbers...
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Bullish Signs For Housing Bearish For Banks
Listing prices rose again in May and the gains, while seasonally normal, are much stronger than they were last year. This is in the absence of any unusual government props. Listing prices and subsequently reported closed sale prices are well correlated. The strength of the rise in listing prices suggests that some markets in...
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Employment Numbers Not Good News For Housing
A clear and direct relationship has existed between employment and house prices in the US over the past 9 years. In order for housing prices to turn up, a necessary condition would be a sustained upturn in total employment. Although the widely reported seasonally adjusted employment data seems to indicate that such an upturn...
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Employment Numbers Not Good News For Housing
Listing prices posted a second month of gains in April. This appears to be seasonal. Housing demand correlates directly with employment and the economy gained jobs in April. The gains appear to be slowing however, and that’s bad news for the future trend. When all the stimulus and Fed pumping ends, it looks like...
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Case Shiller’s Double Dip Has Come and Gone
The S&P/Case Shiller Home Price Indices reported Tuesday are, as usual, so far behind the curve that not only did they miss the “double dip” that has come and gone, it will be at least July or August before it reports an apparent upturn in prices in March and April. S&P’s view of the...
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Housing Prices Rise In Response to Reduced Supply, Higher Employment
No, this is not an April Fools joke. In a surprising turn of events, listing prices rose sharply in March. It could be a case of hope springs eternal, but may also be a result of less foreclosure inventory on the market and a strong gain in total employment in March. The reduction in...
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Homebuilder Perceptions Better but Conditions Really Worse
“U.S. Homebuilder Confidence Rises in March to Highest Level in 10 Months,” screamed the Bloomberg headline this morning. It left out the fact that the readings were barely above 20 year lows. This is one of the most important indicators of the housing market because it represents the perceptions of direct market participants and...
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Long View of Housing Measures Says Sell
Every 3 months the Census Bureau releases an interesting survey of US housing inventory and vacancy for both owner occupied and rental housing. I include a review of this data along with the shorter term and real time indicators on the owner occupied housing market in my proprietary housing updates. The last Census Bureau...
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Alarming Housing Data
There’s a lot of new real estate data to report on since my last update, all of it bad, not in terms of the quality of the data, some of which is lousy, but in terms of the direction that the numbers are headed. Mortgage applications show that current demand is still in the...
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Long Term Housing Vacancy Picture
This chart of total US housing and vacancy over the past 48 years speaks for itself. I will be posting an in depth analysis of all the most recent housing data in the Wall Street Examiner Professional Edition Housing Update later today. Stay up to date with the machinations of the Fed, Treasury, Primary...
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Has the NAR No Shame?
The National Association of Liars reported existing home sales for December today. They said that existing home sales "increased 2.7 percent to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 5.36 million in January from a downwardly revised 5.22 million in Dec...
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The Housing Recovery LIE – Professional Edition
The lagged data from the worst housing indicator in the world, Case Shiller, came out this week, following last week’s release of existing home sales closings in December. Also out this week, the Commerce Department’s Report on new home sales, and the NAR’s data on sales contracts. The Case Shiller data is still catching...
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Post Governmentus Interruptus, Housing Market Sags- Professional Edition
The Mortgage Bankers’ Ass. is closed this week, hence there was no release of the Mortgage Applications Index, the best real time housing demand indicator. However, this week we do have the lagged data from the worst housing indicator in the world, Case Shiller, as well as the almost-as-stupid Pending Home Sales Index from...
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How To Fall From Near Zero- Slowly – Professional Edition
Mortgage applications remained moribund this week after a counter trend move in most of October and November. The data shows no sign of a reversal of the downtrend in purchase applications. New homes sales data released by the Commerce Department today shows builder sales at new record lows. The housing industry remains in a...
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Housing Starts Suggest Inventory Build- Professional Edition
Mortgage applications turned lower this week after a counter trend move in most of October and November. The data shows no sign of a reversal of the downtrend in purchase applications. December homebuilder survey data released today also shows no movement off rock bottom levels. Likewise for November housing starts, although the media, as...
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Pending Home Sales Cow Patties
Here’s what Bloomberg had to say about this morning’s reported jump in pending home sales (signed sales agreements). Pending sales of U.S. existing houses unexpectedly jumped by a record 10 percent in October, indicating the industry at the center of the last recession is stabilizing as the job market improves. Allow me to phrase...
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Second Phase Housing Crash Hidden From Public – Professional Edition
A hidden catastrophe is unfolding in the US housing market. Mainstream media outlets are not telling the story because they are focused on misleading data like the just released Case Shiller Index which showed only a small decline in September. In reality, real time market data indicates that the housing market is undergoing a...
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Failure to Stimulate, Failure to Suppress – Professional Edition
Purchase mortgage applications dropped to near record lows last week as government programs to suppress mortgage rates first failed to stimulate demand, and now seem to be failing to suppress rates. Zillow sales volume data now confirms that this September was by far the worst September since the housing collapse began. Since then, purchase...
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