Current Housing Indicators |
| CURRENT | PREVIOUS | ||
| Existing Home Sales | 4.49m | ▼ | 4.74m |
| New Home Sales | 309,000 | ▼ | 344,000 |
| Housing Starts | 583,000 | ▲ | 477,000 |
| Building Permits | 547,000 | ▲ | 531,000 |
| HMI | 9 | UNCH | 9 |
| Existing Home Prices | $170,300 | ▼ (annually) | $199,800 |
| New Home Prices | $201,100 | ▼ (annually) | $232,400 |
More Videos
- First Time Buyers Rescue Housing: Realtors
- Housing Recovery 'Still In Uncharted Territory': HUD Secretary
- Shadow Inventory Dwarfs Loan Mods
- The Battered Businesses Behind Housing
- Watch Foreclosures, Seriously
- Home Buyer Tax Credit Expansion Heads to Obama
- Congratulations America, We're All Landlords Now
- Wells Fargo Bets on Housing Recovery
- Home Buyer Tax Credit Done: Does it Matter?
- Better Times for Mortgage Banking
MOST SHARED
- CNBC Video: Warren Buffett & Bill Gates - Keeping American Great
- CNBC TRANSCRIPT: Warren Buffett & Bill Gates - Keeping America Great
- For Investors, The New Green Looks To Be White
- Dipping Into Green Investing
- Japan's Economy Expands for Second Staight Quarter
- Analysis: APEC Nations Back Face-Saving Climate Plan
- Should China Be Forced to Free-float the Yuan?
- Microsoft's Bill Gates Praises Apple's Steve Jobs For 'Saving the Company'
- Has Twitter's Finest Hours (Seconds) Come and Gone?
- U.S. Stocks Rally for the Second Straight Week
- Dollar is Not Plunging—So 'Calm Down': Market Strategist
- Strategists Say Markets Have More Upside — But How Much?
- Hirschhorn: Risk-Averse Traders
- Roginsky: A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Financial Reform
- This Year's Biggest Thanksgiving Leftover: Cash
- TV Series Inks Unique Deal For Fight
- First Time Buyers Rescue Housing: Realtors
- Dollar General Trades Higher After Its IPO
- Japan's Economy Expands for Second Staight Quarter
- Shift Into High-Quality Stocks Could Move Market Higher
- China: Low US Interest Rates Threaten Recovery
- Drug Study Questions Effectiveness of Merck's Drugs
- Military Arms Race Dominates Dubai Air Show
- Disaster Film '2012' Drowns Rivals at Box Office
- Cramer: 5 Earnings Reports to Watch Next Week
- Cities With the Most Home Price Reductions
- This Year's Biggest Thanksgiving Leftover: Cash
RSS FEED
Realty Check
Text Size 
 |
AP |
What’s up with that? Derivatives Traders?
“They like to get into things before they actually bottom out,” says Randy Frederick of Charles Schwab. “So even though we really haven’t seen a recovery in the housing market and by most of the data that you look at, it says the bottom’s not here yet…the whole housing sector overall is up 40% in the last couple of months. So it’s a pretty huge turnaround despite the fact that these builders are still posting losses, and potentially losses for the next couple of quarters.”
Those builders, like Toll Brothers[TOL
Loading...
()
] and Ryland [RYL
Loading...
()
]and KB Home,[KBH
Loading...
()
] who are relatively cash-rich and building their cash coffers, will survive the downturn. Despite what the fundamentals might be saying, “the technicals are saying that these stocks are in pretty solid shape right now.”
Ken Leon of S&P is not so bullish. “Well the homebuilders, this is an early cyclical group, when there’s recovery,” says Leon. “So, you will see trading action, but looking at the economy, looking at the housing market, and the homebuilders specific performance, we don’t think that there’s a really, true recovery until the second half of 2009. That suggests that there may be good trading opportunities, but we would probably want to be on the sidelines as homebuilders would as well with their businesses.”
On the whole, the builders’ stocks are pretty darned cheap right now, so if you’re making the long-term play, it might be hard to lose. Short-term is going to be dicier. All the builders agree that sky-high inventories and rising foreclosures which just bloat those inventories, are making for some serious headwinds.
But I do tend to believe Bob Toll, CEO of Toll Brothers, who keeps harping on the pent-up demand. It’s out there, on the fence, being pushed around by tighter lending standards, falling prices and larger macro economic concerns.
Questions? Comments?
Data is a real-time snapshot *Data is delayed at least 15 minutes