Housing starts in the U.S. fell more than anticipated in December, while building permits unexpectedly jumped, signaling inclement weather may have kept builders away from worksites.
Work began on 557,000 houses at an annual rate, down 4 percent from November, figures from the Commerce Department showed today in Washington. Permits, a sign of future construction, climbed to the highest level in a year.
The government’s extension and expansion of a tax credit for first-time buyers may help underpin demand in the first half of 2010, giving builders reason to ramp up new projects. The gain in permits, which are less influenced by weather, indicates an unseasonably cold and wet December probably prevented some work from getting started last month, according to economists like Maury Harris.
Housing Data Split
by Chart School - January 20th, 2010 1:49 pm
Housing Data Split
Courtesy of Jake at Econompic Data
Housing Pumpers Are Out In Force
by ilene - August 22nd, 2009 2:53 pm
Here are Karl Denninger’s thoughts on the housing numbers that rallied the markets yesterday. No surprises here.
Housing Pumpers Are Out In Force
Resales have gained for four consecutive straight months, the longest streak of increases since 2004. "Momentum is building," said Lawrence Yun, NAR’s chief economist.
In other news July remains the last full month before school starts and spring and summer are always the strongest months for home sales.
The NAR is shameless. After David Lereah wrote not one but two books pumping real estate right into the top and managed to suck in millions of Americans (then crush them) you’d think that the NAR would learn.
You’d be wrong.
There has never been a year where seasonality doesn’t matter to home sales, as any family with children will tell you – moving during the school year sucks and is avoided whenever possible.
Let’s see if Yun is forced to do the "Yum Yum" on those words when September – December’s numbers print. I wouldn’t bet against that, given the delinquency numbers released yesterday.
THE ONLY NEWS THAT MATTERED TODAY
by ilene - July 24th, 2009 2:30 am
THE ONLY NEWS THAT MATTERED TODAY
Courtesy of The Pragmatic Capitalist
Forget the seasonal strength in the housing numbers. Jobless claims slightly better than expected? Who cares. UPS reported their earnings today. That’s all you should care about. UPS and FedEx are, in my opinion, the two best barometers of economic growth in the world. While the market rips higher on “better than expected” earnings and the strong housing numbers they are completely overlooking the fact that UPS sees no signs of recovery. As a middle man in almost every transaction it is nearly impossible to see a sharp recovery that UPS is not involved in. CFO Kurt Kuehn had these comments on the call this morning:
“Our trends so far in July show no material uptick in growth, We don’t have any confidence that either demand or activity is going to pick up substantially.”
And directly from the earnings release:
“The economic environment continues to be difficult. Declines in both our domestic and international businesses appear to be stabilizing but volumes will remain significantly below last year’s levels,” said Kurt Kuehn, UPS’s chief financial officer.
“Although declines in economic indicators are less dramatic than earlier in the year, questions remain as to when business activity will begin to strengthen,” he continued. “The business environment in the third quarter should be similar to the second quarter.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the pond Deutsche Post DHL is reporting similar sentiment. CEO Frank Appel says:
“We still don’t have a clear view of . . .further economic development. Though economic conditions haven’t worsened – with new business bustling and our strong market position in Asia – we are not yet seeing any substantial improvement.”
So, the stock market is now getting very euphoric while the underlying fundamentals still show no real sign of a strong recovery. I’m making a list and checking it twice. Although my S&P 1,000 call is still intact, it’s time to start planning for a tactical short position in this environment. The fundamentals don’t rhyme with this market action in the last few weeks.
Photo: FedEx DC10, taken by Kevin McCoy, photo and license posted at Wikipedia.