The U.S. Census Bureau reported (opens pdf) on the changes in number of new homes sold in the U.S during December 2012: the number of new homes sales declined compared with the number of new homes sold during November 2012. The recent drop in the number of homes sold show the progress in the housing market is slowing down. Let’s examine the effect this news may have had on commodities and stocks markets during Friday.
According to the recent report, during December 2012 the annual rate of number of U.S new home sales reached 369,000 (seasonally adjusted); this figure is 7..3 percent below the revised annual rate in November 2012 of 398,000 sales, but it is still 8.8% above the annual rate in December 2011.
The median sales price of new dwellings sold in December 2012 rose to reach $248,900.
This news didn’t seem to stir up the financial markets including the U.S stock markets as the NASDAQ, Dow Jones and S&P500 slightly increased. Moreover, during Friday many commodities including gold, oil, silver and natural gas were traded slightly down.
This report tends to be negatively linked with precious metals (that should be taken with a grain of salt) and as the number of houses sold decline, the prices of precious metals tend to rise.
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