Housing Starts Miss Estimates, Barely Beat Yet Another Downwardly Engineered Prior Number
Courtesy of Tyler Durden
Even as the PPI data came out as expected, both on a MoM (0.2% vs exp 0.2%), and YoY basis (4.2% vs exp 4.2%), from a previous reading of -0.5%, and thus serving as no market moving indicator in either direction, housing starts of 546k came in well below expectations of 560k. And in keeping with tradition, the US government once again revised the prior period data, to make today’s print seem like an improvement: the previous reading of 549k was revised to 537k. As the Census Bureau reported, “Privately-owned housing starts in July were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 546,000. This is 1.7 percent (±9.7%)* above the revised June estimate of 537,000, but is 7.0 percent (±7.5%)* below the July 2009 rate of 587,000.” Completing the trifecta of economic data, Housing Permits also missed expectations of 580k, coming in at 565k. Far less relevantly, we also find that “privately-owned housing completions in July were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 587,000. This is 32.8 percent (±6.8%) below the revised June estimate of 874,000 and is 25.4 percent (±7.3%) below the July 2009 rate of 787,000.” In other words, houses really are not being built.
Of course, none of this matters – the US economy is now defined exclusively by iPods and fake feces (aka fertilizer), which somehow are synonymous, with the futures up half a percent on the Potash offer, soon to be a full % point, economic data be damned.
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