Posts Tagged ‘housing market’
Big Orange; Home Depot 1Q results soft on weather – outlook a positive signal for housing
Home Depot (HD) 1Q14 results reflect a benefit to earnings, net of tax, of $61m from a sale of a portion of the company’s equity ownership in Home Depot Supply Holdings (HDS). Exclusive of this gain, HD reported EPS of $0.96 relative to consensus estimates of $0.99. A miss in a difficult to predict quarter…
Read MoreWealth Effect; gaining steam from asset returns and persistence
The ongoing economic tug-of-war remains tied. Growth spurts with better momentum (housing, auto, healthy corporate profits, job market) are almost immediately met by numerous automatic stabilizers (higher mortgage rates, deteriorating housing affordability, satiation of replacement cycles). But weighing the good and the bad, we are in a fine environment for the stock market. The environment…
Read MoreThe Economic Process of Deleveraging Part Two – Why the US is Well Positioned
The differences between the US situation post-financial crisis and Japan in 1990 are stark. The previous post outlined how extreme things got in Japan and how ahead of itself the Japanese stock market, real estate market and economy got. While Japan was exposed to “extreme extremes” the US economy experienced imbalances that could be worked…
Read MoreRefinancing Activity Hits New Highs – Conditions now in Place for the Housing Market to Turn
Reports have recently been popping up that 30-year fixed mortgage rates in the US have approached 4%. This is a new low for the cycle. Much of the analysis I have read regarding mortgage rates is that they do not matter. The rational goes something like this: since mortgage rates have come down from the…
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