Data Round-Up: Big Upside Surprises in Existing Homes Sales, Wholesale Inventories

posted by Michael Lewis on March 22, 2019 - 12:00am

Please check out FMI's analysis of this morning’s very upbeat February Existing Home Sales report. Also this morning, wholesale book-value inventories jumped +1.2% in January; the consensus had expected only a modest gain. However, international data was more worrisome with Germany’s Markit PMI falling further into the red, down -3 points to 44 in March (50 is break-even).
 
FMI’s Quick Take: The week ended on a solid upside note. Two in fact. February Existing Homes Sales posted their highest level since this past March. That was clearly encouraging. The hefty increase in wholesale book-value inventories should partially offset the considerable headwinds against first quarter real GDP, though the resulting inventory-to-sales ratio will lean against the expected 19Q2 rebound in real growth.

For the full report, please visit Michael's site at http://www.freemarketinc.com/