Earlier today, the National Association of Home Builders reported a 2 point decline in their Housing Market Index, back to its level from May of last year. Details revealed that traffic fell to its lowest levels in a year. Tomorrow, we get another read on the real estate market with Housing Starts scheduled to come out at 8:30 am and consensus numbers are expecting a drop there as well.
Despite these indicators, the housing and real estate stocks have fared better than the overall S&P 500 of late. The Dow Jones Real Estate Holding & Development Index is up 6.6% year-to-date and the DJ Real Estate Services Index is up 5.6% YTD as well. The DJ Retail REITs Index is up ~8% YTD. By comparison the S&P 500 is up 3.2% YTD.
From last year's bottom, some of the biggest housing and housing related related gainers in the S&P 500 over the past 52 weeks include household appliance manufacturers Whirlpool and Black & Decker , both up over 200% in the past year. Here are some of the biggest housing and housing related gainers YTD, led by home builder Lennar :
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