FRI News and Press, First Trust S&P REIT Index Fund From 10/04/22

Summary Construction spending in August ticked up to a record $165.5 billion (not seasonally adjusted), according to the Census Bureau’s estimates. In terms of the seasonally adjusted annual rates of residential construction, the rate of spending on single-family houses fel...

Summary YTD, the S&P 500 is now down 24% while bonds have their own double-digit losses. Like stock valuations, currency valuations aren’t great timing tools but over a 3-year period after becoming undervalued, the outperformance is strong. Consumer defensive stocks...

Summary U.S. equity markets and bond markets slid this week - deepening a historic year-long rout - as Federal Reserve officials doubled down on hawkish rhetoric despite increasingly-apparent tremors of market instability. Closing the month and quarter at the lowest levels in two ...

Summary With Hurricane Ian making landfall as a destructive Category 4 storm on the Southwest Florida coast this week, we examine the expected impact on manufactured housing REITs. The storm took a similar path as Hurricane Irma in 2017, but Ian's storm surge and wind impacts appe...

Summary Rising mortgage rates and a lack of affordability are prompting a steep drop-off in demand for housing. At the same time inventory for sale is on the rise. A combination of falling transactions and prices will intensify the recessionary forces the US economy is facing....

Summary U.S. new home sales unexpectedly rose in August 2022. Mortgage rates dipped slightly from July to August 2022, falling from 5.41% to 5.22%. Looking forward, we anticipate September 2022 will see both fewer sales and lesser affordability given the spike in mortgage rate...

Summary Tuesday's release of the August New Home Sales from the Census Bureau came in at 685K, up 28.8% month-over-month from a revised 532K in July. The median home price is now at $437K. The population-adjusted version is 34.6% below the first 1963 sales and at a level simil...

Summary Inflation as measured by government indices (e.g., CPI, PCE Deflator) is a lagging indicator of true inflation. True inflation is defined as the loss of purchasing power of a currency. Right now that is just not the case: the dollar is soaring against nearly every currency...

Summary Sales of new single-family homes bounced higher in August, jumping 28.8 percent to 685,000 at a seasonally-adjusted annual rate from a 532,000 pace in July. The surprising result is unlikely to be sustained in the coming months. The total inventory of new single-family...

Summary The REIT crash is largely related to rapidly rising interest rates. Market pundits have a variety of theories suggesting REITs are susceptible to interest rates. We examine them to see which are true and which are bogus. I have long pondered the impact of ris...