Risk/Reward archive
Housing market data from the U.S. Commerce Dept. and others show sales and production leveled off and even recovered a bit in the final months of 2022 and first two months of 2023. The seasonally-adjusted annualized rate (SAAR)…
Continue reading →Homebuilding stocks have had a rough 2022. Year-to-date (through 4/12), my equal-weighted index of 11 publicly-traded U.S. homebuilders has fallen 34.8%. That compares with declines of 7.7% in the S&P 500 and 11.5% in the Russell 2000. Following…
Continue reading →2020 was a surprisingly solid year for housing in light of the pandemic and the havoc that it wreaked in other parts of the economy. December data will not be reported until later this month. I project that…
Continue reading →Despite continuing elevated unemployment and dampened consumer confidence, the housing market has been surprisingly strong in the months following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. According to the U.S. Commerce Dept., single-family housing starts for August were estimated…
Continue reading →Homebuilding stocks have been on a wild ride in 2020. They boomed from the start of the year, rising 19.1% (according to my index of 11 publicly-traded builders) to February 21, handily beating the 3.0% gain on the…
Continue reading →2019 was a solid year for U.S. housing. While still subject to modest revisions, government figures show that new residential sales increased 10.4% from an estimated 617,000 units in 2018 to 681,000 units in 2019. Single-family housing starts…
Continue reading →Homebuilding stocks have been the best performing of the 150-odd sectors in the Dow Jones U.S. Total Market Index, up 44.4% over the past 12 months as of November 8. Last year, they declined sharply in the face…
Continue reading →A typical analysis from policy makers, like the Federal Reserve, points out that activity in the housing market has declined so far this year; but that assertion focuses primarily on housing starts. A more complete picture from the…
Continue reading →It has certainly been a rough year for homebuilding stocks, but not nearly so bad for the housing market. The Lark Research Homebuilder Stock Price Index, an equal weighted average of eleven publicly-traded homebuilder stocks, was down 29.2%…
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