We won’t bother telling you about the homebuilder merger this morning, because we already covered it once. But in a down and out sector, you will see that traders are looking to see if…
Pulte Homes, Inc. (NYSE: PHM) is acquiring Centex Corporation (NYSE: CTX) in a stock-for-stock transaction valued at $3.1 billion, including $1.8 billion of net debt. The deal has been unanimously approved by both boards…
The forecasting cycle that drives the market is low on fodder since the earnings season is under way and the latest unemployment numbers are tucked neatly into the bed of economic prediction models. But,…
If the current recession is the longest since WWII and continues for another year, one of its most frightening characteristics is that the number of people whose jobless benefits run out is going to…
In early March, the financial news began to turn good, Citigroup (C) said it has been profitable for the first two months of the year. There were several M&A deals in which large companies…
No one can remember mortgage rates as low as they are now. The thirty-year rate is at 4.85%. Mortgage rates could go to zero and it would probably not help the housing market. One…
Much was made of the new housing statistics. Sales of new homes nationwide jumped by 4.7% in February. Sales of new homes rose to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 337,000 last month. It…
There was another positive number on new home sales data for the month of February. It looks like new home sales came in UP 4.7% at 337,000 annualized units. The SPDR S&P Homebuilders ETF…
The existing home sales data which was released to the market earlier was a “half empty, half full” set of data. The market seemed to take it as just full and left the empty…
It seems that there is at least a little more good news in the housing sector. February showed a 5.1% gain year-over-year in sales of existing homes to a rate of 4.72 million annualized. …
Toll Brothers Inc. (NYSE: TOL) has submitted two different filings showing that CEO Robert Toll unloaded 1 million shares this week.
The latest National Association of Home Builders’ survey shows that confidence is unchanged from last month. This is the second month in a row that the level has remained at 9 for new single-family…
It makes sense. Unemployment for February could hit 8%. It could move closer to 9% by the end of April. That does not include people who have been out of work for extended periods…
It should be impossible for housing to get worse, but then it does. Pending home sales fell 7.7% in January, according to the National Association of Realtors. The index now sits at 80.4, the…
Falling home prices are starting to turn some economists into optimists about the housing market. Their reasoning is simple and compelling. The cost of the average home has come down so much that buyers…