ETF Watch: Housing Resilience (XHB, ITB, PHM)

The economic data on the housing front seems to have very little to cheer about.  Maybe there is some hope on pending sales today, but actual sale closings in existing homes and new homes just continues to show poor numbers.  Borrowers seem to still have a difficult time getting approved for mortgages regardless of their credit history.  Even if you consider that the stock market keeps shrugging off bad news, it seems amazing that the housing related ETFs and major shares are holding up as well as they are.

SPDR S&P Homebuilders (NYSE: XHB) is down marginally today at $18.23 and the 52-week range is $13.59 to $20.00.  The iShares Dow Jones US Home Construction (NYSE: ITB) is up 0.4% at $13.56 on Monday with a 52-week trading range of $10.50 to $15.77.  If you saw last week’s housing numbers and knew nothing about the broader stock market trend of the time, you’d likely have guessed that these were all hitting 52-week lows or were at least close to those lows.

PulteGroup, Inc. (NYSE: PHM) is up another 1% today at $7.65 and its 52-week range is $6.13 to $13.91.  The Goldman Sachs defense of Pulte last week might have offered more support than anything else.  This was actually one of the top analyst calls of the week.

The chart shows how these three have performed in the last 3-months.  Frankly, it is almost surprising that these are not all lower if you merely looked at the housing data that comes out each week.

We would likely offer more analysis and data behind this housing effort but the numbers just haven’t justified it.  The incentives to buy a home have passed.  The affordability keeps getting more and more affordable.  Many housing markets are back to prices from 2004 and even before.  Finding anyone who believes that inflation will come to home prices is no easy task.

JON C. OGG