Thoughts to Ponder and The Market Update May 22

 

Thoughts to Ponder . . .

• I told my wife that a husband is like a fine wine; he gets better with age. The next day, she locked me in the cellar.
• The most important thing in life is not knowing all the answers, it’s having your phone handy so you can Google it.
• Life is always rocky when you’re a gem.
• I get tired from just thinking of everything I have to do.

 

 

And Now on to The Market Update . . .

Stock market appears set to close down about 300 points for the week based upon current futures in the market.

• Wednesday the market tumbled 373 points on concerns that President Trump may have been obstructing justice with the firing of Director Comey.
• Time will tell….Crazy, as it has nothing to do with the actual performance of stocks.

 

New home sales continue to surprise the market as builders are reporting strong activity for the month of May.

• Builders appear even more optimistic about future sales.
• The housing market has risen 2 points up to 70, which is higher than analysts were expecting.
• Current sales are also higher by 2 points to a level of 76.
• Buyer traffic remains strong at 51 and this is the 5^th time in the last 6 months that the reading is over 50, which is considered very healthy.

 

Housing starts continue to remain strong for the single-family sector.

• This area rose 0.4 percent for the month of April to a rate of 835,000.
• The downside of the report is that permits for single-family home construction fell 4.5 percent.
• There does not appear to be any factors such as weather that appear to be contributing to this decline so questions are starting to be asked as to if this is the beginning of a change in direction.
• It is too early to tell with just this report, but analysts will certainly be watching future releases of housing data very closely.

 

Despite the fact that mortgage rates remained flat, applications for both purchases and refinances declined from 8-year highs in the week ending May 12^th.

• Purchase applications dropped a seasonally adjusted 3.0 percent while refinances declined 6.0 percent.
• The positive part of the report is that purchase applications remain 9.0 percent higher than the same time last year.
• Not surprising is that refinance applications are down 41.1 percent from their highs.
• This is the lowest level of refinance activity since September 2008.

 

Perhaps it’s a great time to contact us to see if it makes sense to refinance to a lower payment or rate to pay off your home sooner, or get cash out to do that home improvement you have been waiting for.

 

The labor market continues to remain extremely tight.

• First time jobless claims came in at 232k.
• The demand for labor is very strong and shows no sign of letting up.
• Qualified candidates are hard to attract and this will likely lead to wage growth in the coming months.

 

This week’s potential market moving reports are:

• Tuesday May 23^rd – New Home Sales
• Wednesday May 24^th – MBA Applications, FHFA HPI, Existing Home Sales, FOMC Minutes
• Thursday May 25^th – First Time Jobless Claims, Bloomberg Consumer Comfort Index
• Friday May 26^h – Durable Goods Orders, GDP, Corporate Profits