We’re Flying with Eyes Partially Closed into Turbulent Markets & Economy
But for the markets: “No Data is Good Data”
“NOTICE: Due to a lapse in federal funding this website is not being updated,” it says in big lettering against a bright red background at the top of the data sites of the Department of Commerce.
This morning, the Commerce Department was supposed to release crucial data for the housing market: sales and inventories of new single-family houses (“new home sales”). This includes sales and inventory figures, how many months of supply there was, and the median sales price of the new houses that sold. Today’s release would have been for sales that closed in December. But the Commerce Department is part of the shutdown, and no data was released.
This makes it the second month in a row that we have not seen national data on new home sales. The last month for which we received data was for October, released on November 28. And it was very lousy. So thank God that there is no data, because homebuilder stocks that had gotten battered by a series of lousy data have surged during the absence of data.
This morning, we were also supposed to get the report by the Commerce Department on “durable goods” with crucial data on orders and shipments in the manufacturing sector. But no.
This morning, we were also supposed to get the report on steel imports from the International Trade Administration, but it is part of the Commerce Department. The US is the largest steel importer in the world, and given all the hullaballoo about the tariffs on steel imports, it would be good to know for the industry and data watches alike what is going on. But there is no data on steel imports.
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