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Economy in Brief
U.S. Housing Starts Drop to 1.446 Mil. in July
Toal housing starts fell 9.6% m/m (-8.1% y/y) to a lower-than-expected 1.446 million...
U.S. Gasoline Prices Decline While the Cost of Crude Oil Rises
Retail gasoline prices fell to $3.94 per gallon (+24.1% y/y) last week...
ZEW Experts Still See Depressed Conditions and Harbor Weak Expectations
the current situation in the eyes of the ZEW experts strengthened in August in the U.S. and the U.K. but...
U.S. Home Builder Index Extends Downward Trend
The NAHB-Wells Fargo Composite Housing Market Index declined 10.9% during August (-34.7% y/y) to 49...
U.S. Empire State Manufacturing Index Plummets in August; Lowest Since May '20
The Empire State Manufacturing Index of General Business Conditions plunged to -31.3 in August...
Viewpoints
Commentaries are the opinions of the author and do not reflect the views of Haver Analytics.
by Tom Moeller January 17, 2018
The Composite Housing Market Index from the National Association of Home Builders-Wells Fargo fell 2.7% (+7.5% y/y) to 72 during January following its 7.2% December surge. The decline matched expectations in the Informa Global Markets Survey. The NAHB figures are seasonally adjusted. During the last ten years, there has been a 65% correlation between the y/y change in the home builders index and the y/y change in housing starts.
The index of present sales conditions in the housing market fell 1.2% to 79 (+9.7% y/y). The index for conditions in the next six months fell 1.3% to 78 (+2.6% y/y).
Home builders reported that the traffic of prospective buyers index fell 6.9% to 54 (+5.9% y/y).
Amongst the regional indexes, the index for the Midwest declined 9.2% (+4.5% y/y) while the index for the West fell 1.2% (+10.7% y/y). For the South, the index fell 4.0% (+5.9% y/y). The index for the Northeast surged 17.0% (11.6% y/y).
The NAHB has compiled the Housing Market Index since 1985. It reflects survey questions asking builders to rate market conditions as "good," "fair," "poor" or "very high" to "very low." The figure is thus a diffusion index with numerical results six over 50 indicating a predominance of "good" readings. The weights assigned to the individual index components are .5920 for single-family detached sales, present time, .1358 for single-family detached sales, next months and .2722 for traffic of prospective buyers. The results are included in Haver's SURVEYS database. The expectations figure is available in Haver's MMSAMER database.
National Association of Home Builders | Jan | Dec | Nov | Jan '17 | 2017 | 2016 | 2015 |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Composite Housing Market Index, SA (All Good=100) | 72 | 74 | 69 | 7.5% | 68 | 61 | 59 |
Single-Family Sales: Present | 79 | 80 | 77 | 9.7 | 74 | 67 | 64 |
Single-Family Sales: Next Six Months | 78 | 79 | 76 | 2.6 | 76 | 67 | 66 |
Traffic of Prospective Buyers | 54 | 58 | 50 | 5.9 | 50 | 45 | 43 |