FRI News and Press, First Trust S&P REIT Index Fund From 09/21/22

Summary Housing starts data notwithstanding, here’s why we think the US housing market deterioration will have a downside acceleration following what has been a surge in valuations. Spreads are widening while rates are rising. The results are simple. Housing may be in t...

Summary Relative to expectations, Tuesday’s report on Building Permits and Housing Starts was mixed, but overall, it was pretty lousy. As we have highlighted frequently over the years, Housing Starts have been an excellent leading indicator of the economic cycle. Lookin...

Summary U.S. Census Bureau and Department of Housing and Urban Development latest reading of August new residential housing starts of 1.575M was above the Investing.com forecast of 1.445M and is a 12.2% increase from the previous month's 1.404M. Privately‐owned housing star...

Summary Although consumers are benefiting from robust labor markets and strong balance sheets, they appear reluctant to buy high-cost durable goods. A key to navigating inflation risk is understanding its relationship with asset class returns. Historically, high-inflation episodes...

Summary Nobody knows how high interest rates have to rise in order to slow and ultimately reverse the recent rise in inflation. Only excess money causes inflation, and there seems to be a lot less of it recently, which is great news. Supply chain bottlenecks are clearing up ra...

Summary The first half of the year saw GDP contract slightly and GDI expand slightly, and I interpret that as little to no growth. The money market futures I follow and the market based models I track all put the peak in rates somewhere between March and June of next year. I d...

Summary U.S. equity markets posted their worst week since June after CPI data showed an unexpected acceleration in headline inflation, likely keeping the Fed on course to further tighten monetary policy. Declining in four-of-the-past five weeks and effectively erasing its summer r...

Summary Why Canada's housing downturn may have been needed? Why the rental market is Canada's new housing headache? After years of low rates, higher rates are putting housing prices back to normal levels. The Bank of Canada's aggressive rate hikes are aimed a...

Summary The mortgage purchase index last week dropped to 197.8. According to the Census Bureau data, this is the first time in history that the number of single-family homes being built exceeds the run rate of single-family homes that are being sold. The homebuilder stocks hav...

Summary One of the more "bond-like" and rate-sensitive REIT sectors, net lease REITs have surprisingly been among the best-performing property sectors this year despite the challenging rising-rate environment. Even with rent growth significantly lagging inflation, net lease REITs ...