What happened: Even though home sales fell in April, the trend is solidly up. The revised March sales figures were the highest since October 2007, and there were upward revisions to every month stretching back to December.
Sales were 7% higher than a year ago in April.
The median sales price in April, $342,200, was 8% higher than a year ago. At the current pace of sales, it would take 5.9 months to exhaust available supply, about matching the 6 months that’s traditionally been considered the marker of an evenly balanced market.
In the year to date, sales are 6.7% higher than the same period a year ago.
Market reaction: Big publicly-traded builders have had a fantastic 2019: D.R. Horton, Inc. DHI, +1.29% shares have gained 26% so far, while Meritage Homes Corporation MTH, -0.46% shares are up more than 39%. But there have been warning signs in the most recent round of earnings news. Shares of Toll Brothers, Inc. TOL, -2.73% slid nearly 4% Wednesday after the company reported sales were down 9% compared to a year ago.
The SPDR S&P Homebuilders ETF (XHB) was trading at $39.54 per share on Thursday morning, down $0.26 (-0.65%). Year-to-date, XHB has declined -10.49%, versus a 6.07% rise in the benchmark S&P 500 index during the same period.
XHB currently has an ETF Daily News SMART Grade of C (Neutral), and is ranked #32 of 41 ETFs in the Consumer-Focused ETFs category.
This article is brought to you courtesy of MarketWatch .
