Consumer Economy
Median New Home Sales Price (MSPNHSUS); 426.6K +15.2K (+3.56% m/m)
New Home Supply (MSACSR); 9.8 +1.8 (+18% m/m)
Single Family New Home Sales (HSN1F); 623K -99K (-13.71% m/m)
Durable Goods, New Orders (DGORDER), $344B +48.3B (+14.07% m/m)
Existing Home Sales (EXHOSLUSM495S), 4.030M +30.0K (+0.74% m/m)
Personal Income (PI); 25.698T -109.5B (-0.43% m/m)
Auto/Light Truck Sales (ALTSALES); 15.65M -1.6M (-10.30% m/m)
GDP (GDP), 29.962T +238.2B, (+0.79% q/q), (prior +1.17% q/q), +238.2B [+0.79%] y/y
New Homes: prices increased, supply increased, while number of sales dropped. “I know. Our new house isn’t selling so let’s raise the price!” Months-of-supply = 9.8 is a very bearish sign. Existing home sales (SA) inched higher – but remain near the lows [Series high 6.7M, low 3.8M, today 4.0M]. Overall, housing looks bad.
Durable goods saw a YUGE gain of $48 billion, jumping to a new all time high. Apparently this was all about Qatar ordering stuff from Boeing. (source – zerohedge)
Personal Income actually fell; much of the drop was due to a decline in social benefits paid by government, which fell by $111 billion (SAAR) this month – about a 2.3% decline. No More Dead People getting social security? (source – zerohedge)
Now imagine what we’d see if they cut off all the Magic Money Machines? Not gonna happen I suspect. Too many people benefit from all that actually-printed money.
Auto/Light Truck sales is now down from the highs – it is still (barely) in an uptrend, but on the edge of a bearish reversal.
So home price weakness (2008?), weak auto/light truck sales, falling personal income due to less fraud – probably leading to weakness in spending. It feels somewhat recessionary.
Credit & Rates
Fed Balance Sheet (WALCL); 6.662T -18.9B (-0.28% w/w)
Total Bank Credit (TOTBKCR); 18.475T +29.0B (+0.16% w/w; 8.32% annualized)
30 Year Mortgage Rate (MORTGAGE30US); 6.77% -4 bp
10 Year Treasury (DGS10); 4.25% -13 bp
20 Year Bond Fund (TLT); +1.04%
There was some modest QT; it was a new post-pandemic low in the Fed balance sheet.
by davefairtex 
