New home sales continued to turn in disappointing performance, while lay-offs were at historic lows, and incomes were on the rise.
New Home Sales
New home sales took a plunge in March, with completed transactions of new, single-family homes dropping 1.5 percent to an annual rate of 511,000, according to a joint report from the Census Bureau and the Department of Housing and Urban Development. That said, compared annually, March’s new home sales marked a 5.4 percent increase over March 2015’s rate of 485,000.
Looking at price and supply, the median sales price of new homes sold in March was $288,000, and the average sales price was $356,200. The estimated number of new homes for sale at the end of March totaled 246,000, which represented a 5.8-month supply of homes at March’s sales rate.
The big hope was that seasonal sales increases will help turn around new home sales’ recent disappointments.
“While new home sales have lost some luster in recent months, we believe they will re-accelerate as we head into [the] spring season,” noted Gregory Daco, head of U.S. macroeconomics at Oxford Economics, in a public statement.
Initial Jobless Claims
Lay-offs ticked up, but remained at lows not seen since the 1970s. First-time claims for unemployment benefits filed by the newly unemployed during the week ending April 23 hit 257,000, a gain of 9,000 claims over the preceding week’s level of 248,000, the Employment and Training Administration reported. This marked the 60th straight week of initial claims below 300,000 — a level that economists associate with a growing job market — which is the longest streak at that level since 1973.
The four-week moving average — which is regarded as a more reliable measure of job losses — dropped to 256,000, a decline of 4,750 claims from the previous week’s average of 260,750 claims.
“We’re seeing things in the labor market hold up well,” Wells Fargo Securities LLC Economist Sarah House told Bloomberg. “Businesses are feeling pretty comfortable with where the economy is going, so they don’t feel like they have to make those cuts.”
Incomes and Spending
Personal incomes saw welcome news in March: a 0.4 percent increase to $57.4 billion for the month, with disposable personal income (DPI; income after taxes) also growing 0.4 percent to $50.4 billion, according to last week’s report from the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
Personal consumption expenditures (PCE) grew 0.1 percent to hit $12.8 billion. Personal outlays — which combine PCE, personal interest payments, and personal current transfer payments — grew $11.2 billion in March.
Wages and salaries rose to $29.2 billion in March, with private wages and salaries growing $26.3 billion. Supplements to wages and salaries grew by $5.4 billion in March.
Personal saving — which is DPI less personal outlays — grew to $735.5 billion in March, with the personal saving rate — which describes personal saving as a percentage of DPI — increased to 5.4 percent. This week we can expect:
- Monday — Construction spending for March from the Census Bureau.
- Tuesday — Car and truck sales for April from the auto makers.
- Wednesday — First quarter productivity from the Bureau of Labor Statistics; March factory orders from the Census Bureau.
- Thursday — Initial jobless claims for last week from the Employment and Training Administration.
- Friday — March consumer credit from the Federal Reserve; April payrolls, unemployment, average workweek and hourly earnings from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
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