For the fifteenth consecutive month dating back to November 2014, the US CPI remained less than 1.5%. While this was supposed to be the year where “transitory” effects of oil prices as well as “other” factors dissipated, only in January has the full CPI been above 1.1%. Much like the PCE Deflator, the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge, there is no [...]
The single family housing market, at least from the view of new construction, continues on as it has for the past two years. There isn’t really much taking place, as new construction plods along in a curious stasis, sort of continuing to scrape along the bottom of the barrel. Permits and starts were again near 700k, SAAR, but that remains [...]
The latest figures from the Census Bureau on home construction continue to suggest that the home sales number from last month was, at best, a one-off abnormality. If new home sales were heading appreciably higher in what might have been perceived as a sustained advance, you would expect that new home construction would at least closely follow to take advantage [...]
The latest volatility in housing construction figures transferred to the single-family segment, as apartment construction has now entered full-scale languishing. In some respects that is contradictory to 2014’s view of a boom in rental properties, but I wonder if the lack of household formation is finally starting to catch up – rent or not. There is already an immense shadow [...]
The long-awaited “clarification” in GSE housing expansion is about due, and coincidentally it will be released at the same time other central agents are getting their work done. So as the global economy falls into at least a changed mood out of complacency and disinterest, suddenly the ECB has its covered bond “purchase” finalized (as if that is any different [...]
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