Home Depot Stock, Commodity Prices

Each day the Research staff takes a look at recently released economic indicators, addressing what these indicators mean for REALTORS® and their clients. Today’s update discusses Home Depot stock prices and commodity prices.

• Home Depot today came out with solid financial performance on the back of moderate improvements in both housing starts and home sales.  Because of general forward-looking views and the much stronger/volatile reaction in stock prices compared to housing starts and home sales, the Home Depot stock price has climbed fast out of a slump and is within an easy reach of a 10-year high.  Lowe’s will release its financial report next week.
• The latest NAR existing home sales release is on deck for tomorrow (Wednesday), while new home sales from Census will be released on Friday.  Both are expected to show some gains as several local REALTOR® associations have publicly reported higher unit sales, though not in prices.  The economic factors of more jobs, high affordability conditions, and rising rents also suggest more home sales to come in months ahead.
• In separate economic news, the common expectation that there will be no recession in the U.S. and a very loose monetary policy is kicking up commodity prices.  Oil and gasoline prices are already high and could go higher still if the U.S. dollar weakens in relation to other currencies.  For heavy meat eaters, the prices of beef and pork are set to go higher based on rising prices of live cattle and lean hogs at the futures market. On the relief side, the mild winter has held back natural gas prices.