Summary for Week ending June 29th

The top economic story last week was the eurozone deal. From the Financial Times:

The agreement will result in EU bailout funds eventually being injected directly into teetering Spanish financial institutions, meaning Madrid can sweep the burden of the bailouts off its sovereign books.

However, the rescue for Spain's banks will only come after the creation of a single banking supervisor to be run by the European Central Bank.

The summit agreement also contained some concessions for Italy ... setting the stage for Rome to become the sixth eurozone country to request EU assistance ...
excerpt with permission

As always, beware of the details!

In the US, housing continues to improves, however manufacturing was soft in June - and consumer spending was flat in May. For housing, new home sales were up solidly, and house prices - as reported by Case-Shiller - increased in April. Also the Pending Home sales index increased 5.9% in May.

Here is a summary of last week in graphs:

' New Home Sales increased in May to 369,000 Annual Rate

Click on graph for larger image in graph gallery.

The Census Bureau reports New Home Sales in May were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate (SAAR) of 369 thousand. This was up from 343 thousand SAAR in April. Sales in February and March were revised up.

The first graph shows New Home Sales vs. recessions since 1963. The dashed line is the current sales rate.

On inventory, according to the Census Bureau:

"A house is considered for sale when a permit to build has been issued in permit-issuing places or work has begun on the footings or foundation in nonpermit areas and a sales contract has not been signed nor a deposit accepted."

Starting in 1973 the Census Bureau broke this down into three categories: Not Started, Under Construction, and Completed.

This graph shows the three categories of inventory starting in 1973.

The inventory of completed homes for sale was at a record low 43,000 units in May. The combined total of completed and under construction is at the lowest level since this series started.

New home sales have averaged 353 thousand SAAR over the first 5 months of 2012, after averaging under 300 thousand for the previous 18 months. All of the recent revisions have been up too. This was a very solid report and above the consensus forecast.