Housing: The Good./Bad of Inflation

You’ve heard the stories at the bar.  “You want the Good news, or the Bad about inflation?” asks a player.

“Uh…Ure call….”

“OK, here’s the Housing data – you work it out!”

Year-Over-Year

• The S&P Cotality Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price NSA Index, covering all nine U.S. census divisions, reported a 2.1% annual gain in August, up from a 1.9% rise in the previous month.
• The 10-City Composite saw an annual increase of 3.6%, up from a 3.4% increase in the previous month. The 20-City Composite posted a year-over-year increase of 2.7%, up from a 2.5% rise in the previous month.
• Chicago, New York and Cleveland reported the highest year-over-year gains with year-over-year price increases of 6.7%, 6.2% and 4.3%, respectively.
• Seattle posted the lowest return in August, falling -2.0% year over year.

Month-over-Month

• The pre-seasonally adjusted U.S. National Index posted a monthly decrease of 0.2%; while both the 10-City Composite and 20-City Composite Indices recorded a monthly decline of 0.4%.
• After seasonal adjustment, the U.S. National, 10-City, and 20-City Composite Indices posted 0.3%, 0.4%, and 0.3% gains, respectively.

Which pizxelizes into:

Initial reaction on the futures market?

Well S&P +30 and Dow +145 by the look of it.  But there’s still the Fed and Maalox for lun ch tomorrow.

Write when it makes sense or go read today’s real column here.

!Ure