A Nasty Surprise on New Home Sales
The February report showed a 3.9% slump, bucking some earlier positive signals in the sector. Harsh winter weather may be the key culprit Those McMansions aren t moving like they used to. Wall Street was caught by surprise on Mar. 26 with the release of a Commerce Dept. report showing a 3.9% drop in U.S. new home sales in February, to a 0.848 million unit annual pace. And the back data for new home sales since November were revised considerably lower as well. The headline figure was well short of the 1.0 million median forecasts of economists revealed by Action Economics. The drop was all the more surprising given the positive signals on the housing sector seen earlier in March: the 3.9% pop in February existing home sales, and the surge in the National Association of Home Builders sentiment index from 35 to 39 in February, before dropping back to 36 in March. The 10 a.m. [Eastern Daylight Saving Time] release had an immediate impact on financial markets, as investors worried that the