All Things in Moderation

Vital Statistics:

Stocks are flat this morning on no real news. Bonds and MBS are flat as well.

Fed Chairman Jerome Powell is scheduled to speak at 1:00 pm. These are generally not market-moving events, however given the expectations gulf between the Fed and the markets, it is possible that something could spook investors.

Home prices rose 3.5% in April, according to the Case-Shiller Home Price Index. This is down from a 3.7% annual gain in the prior month. “Home price gains continued in a trend of broad-based moderation,” says Philip Murphy, Managing Director and Global Head of Index Governance at S&P Dow Jones Indices. “Year-over-year price gains
remain positive in most cities, though at diminishing rates of change. Seattle is a notable exception, where the YOY change has decreased from 13.1% in April 2018 to 0.0% in April 2019.

Mortgage rates are driving the deceleration in home price appreciation. That said, these are April numbers, which correspond with a 10 year bond yield about 50 basis points higher than today. It will be interesting to see if home price appreciation starts picking up.

Compare the Case-Shiller numbers to the FHFA House Price Index. In April, home prices rose 5.2% according to that index. The FHFA index ignores cash transactions and jumbos, so it is more weighted towards starter homes. It shows that there is still plenty of strength at the lower price points. Note as well the deceleration in the previously hot markets, especially Left Coast.

New Home sales fell to an annualized pace of 680,000 in May, according to Census. This is down 7.8% MOM and 3.7% YOY. New Home Sales is a notoriously volatile number, with a wide margin for error, but it looks like builders are still sitting on their hands.

Bernie Sanders promises to forgive student loan debt paid for with a transaction tax. He expects the tax to raise $2.4 trillion. No details on the tax are available, but it will make mortgages more expensive as it would probably increase hedging costs. Also, it will never raise that kind of money since the immediate effect will be to kill high frequency trading, which is more than half the volume on the US stock exchanges. Many of these high frequency traders are liquidity providers who have automated the role of the specialist and market maker of yesteryear. The net effect will be widen bid-ask spreads and increase the market reaction to orders.

Filed under: Economy, Morning Report |