Latest / Markets with Megan: A Quick Financial Markets Update / Biggest Drop In 10 Months! | S2 E012 | 02-19-25

Transcript

Biggest Drop In 10 Months! | S2 E012 | 02-19-25 · Markets with Megan: A Quick Financial Markets Update

• 0:00
  Megan Horneman: Well, the data is suggesting it's going to be a cold winter here for the housing market.
• 0:04
  Megan Horneman: It is Wednesday, February the 19th, and this is Markets with Megan.
• 0:07
  Megan Horneman: Please, if you like this podcast, please subscribe.
• 0:10
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• 0:13
  Megan Horneman: So let's dig in.
• 0:14
  Megan Horneman: Today we're going to talk about the data we got on the housing market.
• 0:17
  Megan Horneman: We started this morning with housing starts and building permits, and this is on top of yesterday's NEHB Home Builder Sentiment Index.
• 0:24
  Megan Horneman: The Home Builder Sentiment Index was weak, as was the housing data that we got today for housing starts.
• 0:32
  Megan Horneman: Housing starts fell at the fastest pace that we've seen in 10 months.
• 0:35
  Megan Horneman: This was broad-based.
• 0:38
  Megan Horneman: This was, you know, when you look at single-family or multifamily, this was the first time we've seen single-family home construction actually decline since October, and we saw double-digit drops in three out of the four regions that are monitored here.
• 0:52
  Megan Horneman: The only region that we saw increase on both the multi and single-family homes was the West.
• 1:00
  Megan Horneman: So this does show us that there is some weather related disruption in this data.
• 1:06
  Megan Horneman: We'll see if we get a big pickup in February, but we do think some of this is weather related, especially when you look at the regions.
• 1:12
  Megan Horneman: Also, don't forget that we did see the mortgage rate rise to the highest level that we saw since May of last year in January.
• 1:20
  Megan Horneman: So that probably did impact as well.
• 1:24
  Megan Horneman: When you look at at the sentiment indicators that we got yesterday all three of those components confidence on not only the current situation but the prospective buyer traffic, as well as future expectations they all declined.
• 1:38
  Megan Horneman: The expectation component in that index was the biggest drop we've seen since the start of pandemic and this was attributed to the concern around what tariffs will do to housing prices because of the input costs for homes.
• 1:51
  Megan Horneman: So what is this doing to the market?
• 1:53
  Megan Horneman: Today the equity markets are lower and we're seeing basically flat fixed income markets and housing data doesn't get a huge amount of market.
• 2:01
  Megan Horneman: You know market action and that's primarily because there is still a lot more to come.
• 2:05
  Megan Horneman: We'll get existing home sales, pending home sales, but also it is a very volatile data point because of the fact that it can be weather related.
• 2:13
  Megan Horneman: That's all that we have today.
• 2:16
  Megan Horneman: We'll be back.
• 2:16
  Megan Horneman: We have some more this week.
• 2:17
  Megan Horneman: As I mentioned, we'll have more home sale information and we'll have some more information on the manufacturing side.
• 2:24
  Megan Horneman: If you like this podcast again, you can see some further history of ours on marketswithmegan.
• 2:28
  Megan Horneman: fm.
• 2:30
  Megan Horneman: Thank you.