U.S. New Home Sales Declined in February 2012

Today, the U.S. Census Bureau updated on the number of new homes sales in the U.S during February 2012: new homes sales slightly declined again compared with the number of homes sold during January 2012.

According to the recent report, during February 2012 the annual rate of number of U.S new home sales reached 313,000 (seasonally adjusted); this figure is 1.6 percent below the revised annual rate in January 2012 of 318,000 sales, but it is still 11.4% above the annual rate in February 2011.

The median sales price of new dwellings sold in January 2012 reached $233,700.

This news coincides with the decline in sales of existing homes – a report that was published a couple of days ago. This news doesn’t look well on the recovery of the U.S. real estate market. Therefore this news may be among the factors to weaken the US dollar against major currencies including Euro and consequently may positively affect the prices of major commodities including gold and crude oil.

This report may also adversely affect the American stock markets, which are currently traded with mixed trend.

Current gold price, short term futures (April 2012 delivery) is traded at $1,660.80 per t oz. a $18.3 increase or 1.11%, as of 16:59*.

Nymex (WTI) crude oil price, short term futures (April 2012 delivery) is increasing by 1.43% to $106.86 per barrel as of 16:59*.

Euros to USD exchange rate is currently traded up to 1.3274 a  0.55% increase as of 16:59*.

(* GMT)

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