Yesterday, the U.S. Census Bureau reported the change in number of new homes sold in the U.S during July 2012: the number of new homes sales decreased compared with the number of new homes sold during June 2012.
According to the recent report, during July 2012 the annual rate of number of U.S new home sales reached 372,000 (seasonally adjusted); this figure is 3.6 percent above the revised annual rate in June 2012 of 359,000 sales, and it is 25.3% above the annual rate in July 2011.
The median sales price of new dwellings sold in July 2012 edged up to reach $224,200.
This news doesn’t coincide with the decline in the number of housing starts – a report that was published last week.
Currently this news doesn’t seem to have much of an effect the U.S stock markets despite encouraging figures this report presented. It seems that the recent minute of the FOMC meeting and developments in Europe are crowding out the effect of this news. Currently, the U.S stock markets including Dow Jones, S&P500 and NASDAQ are rising.
Further, precious metals prices are falling after they increased during yesterday. There is a tendency of a negative relation (that should be taken with a grain of salt) between the shifts in new home sales and bullion rates: as the number of homes sold rise, precious metals tend to decline.
Current gold price, short term futures (September 2012 delivery) is traded at $1,666.1 per t oz. a $6.7 decrease or 0.4%, as of 07:51*.
Current silver price, short term futures (September 2012 delivery) is traded at $30.37 per t oz. a $0.172 decrease or 0.56%, as of 07:52*.
(* GMT)
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