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We are pleased to bring you our third installment in the New Features blog series in Stock Rover. In this post we cover several key refinements and improvements to Stock Rover that we think you will find beneficial. To see what we have added, click here.
In their fourth consecutive monthly decline, September’s new home sales dropped to their lowest rate since December 2016, with a -5.5% drop from August bringing the seasonally adjusted annual rate (SAAR) of sales to 553,000, and down -13.2% from September 2017. At the end of the month there were an estimated 327,000 new homes for sale, raising the supply from 6.5 to 7.1 months, with a median price of $320,000, and and average price of $377,200. On a yearly basis sales dropped the most in the Northeast (-51.3%), followed by the West (-15.8%), and the South (-11.4%), and sales increased in the Midwest at +4.1%. More homes were available from $200,000 – $299,999 (+4% to 36%) and $300,000 – $399,999 (+1% to 23%), with fewer homes priced less than $200,000 (-3% to 10%), and fewer priced higher than $500,000 (-6% to 14%).
New orders for durable goods in August were revised upwards from +4.5% to +4.6% and new orders in September were up +0.8%, with the bulk of September’s increase due to a +119% increase in defense aircraft orders. Excluding transportation brought the increase in new orders down to +0.1%, and excluding all defense orders brought new orders down to a -0.6% drop for the month. Defense capital goods orders had been up by +48.9% in August, but contracted by -14.3% in September, leading to a -4.4% drop in overall new capital goods orders for the month. On a yearly basis, overall new orders are up +8.9%, with defense capital goods up +22.7% and transportation orders up +11.2%. The yearly transportation increase was due to +19.3% increase for defense aircraft, a +16.6% increase for nondefense aircraft, and a +7.1% increase for motor vehicles. Only new orders for computers and related products dropped for the year at -9.9%.
GDP for the third quarter grew at +3.3% vs. 4.2% in the second quarter, with after-tax, inflation adjusted real personal income increasing at the same +2.5% rate as the second quarter. Personal consumer spending rose from a +3.8% seasonally adjusted annual gain in Q2 to +4.0% in Q3, while the personal savings rate fell from 6.8% to 6.4%. The trade deficit widened by -1.78%, primarily due to a -0.59% drop in goods exports and a -1.23% increase imports. Private investment spending grew at +2.03% based largely on a +2.07% growth in inventories, with a minor offset from a -0.04% drop in fixed investments. The drop in fixed investments itself was a mix of a +0.35% gain in intellectual property products, a -0.26% drop in nonresidential structure spending, and a -0.16% drop in residential spending. Government spending grew at +0.56% (vs. +0.43% in Q2), with the increase in federal spending dropping from +0.24% to +0.21%, and state and local spending increasing from Q2’s +0.20% rate to +0.35%.
Monday October 29 – Personal Income and Outlays
Friday November 2 – Employment Situation
