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

Summary The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted daily life and normal market cycles. It also led to a synchronized global recovery, global inflation and central bank tightening. In our analysis, US inflation already peaked in June, and although it is currently a headwind for continental E...

Summary Surging mortgage rates are taking a toll: a 30-year fixed rate, for example, is close to 7%, a 20-year-high. The Federal Reserve’s ongoing hikes in interest rates are taking a toll on housing demand. Incoming numbers for real estate activity are arguably the cri...

Summary Why supply chains are no longer behind our inflation troubles. As inflation pressures continue, the wisdom of rates hikes questioned. With U.S. core inflation still rising, odds grow of another big rate hike. The latest U.S. inflation data shows price...

Summary The average square footage in new single-family houses has been declining since 2015. House sizes tend to fall just during recessionary periods. But even with strong economic growth numbers well into 2019, it looks like demand for houses of historically large size may have...

Summary Construction starts of all types of privately owned housing units – single-family houses and units in multifamily buildings – fell by 8.1% in September from August, and by 7.7% year-over-year. These initial estimates tend to get revised sharply up or down, an...

Summary As I've argued in recent posts, there's plenty of evidence to suggest the Fed has already tightened by enough to bring inflation down. The dollar is super-strong, real yields have risen sharply, the yield curve is inverted, commodity prices are plunging, and the housing ma...

Summary On a y/y basis, both starts and permits saw declines of 7.7% and 3.2%, respectively. The real weakness, however, has been in single-family units where starts are down 18.5% and permits fell 17.3% even as multifamily units were both up by double-digit percentages y/y. I...

Summary The latest reading of 1.439M was below the Investing.com forecast of 1.475M and is an 8.1% decrease from the previous month's 1.566M. The Census Bureau's mid-month population estimates show substantial growth in the US population since 1959. The extreme volatility of t...

Summary Total housing starts fell to a 1.439 million annual rate in September from a 1.566 million pace in August, an 8.1 percent drop. Input costs and supply delivery problems are still concerns for builders though lumber prices have declined sharply from recent highs. Pressu...

Summary The US National Association of Home Builders (NAHB)/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index (HMI), designed to gauge market conditions, fell to 38 in October from 46 in September, now 50% lower than it was six months ago (below 50 is considered negative), and the largest year over ye...