Existing home sales - down; pending home sales - down; affordability (as rates spike) - down; new home sales - up at 7-month highs (beating all but one of 70 economists' estimates)
New Home Sales SAAR in Feb printed 592k (beating expectations of 564k by 3 standard deviations)...
Weather played a big role by the look of it...
Northeast sales tumbled 21.4% MoM as Midwest soared 30.9% MoM!
First Deutsche Bank, now Credit Suisse: according to Bloomberg, the second largest Swiss bank, is also preparing to take advantage of euphoric markets and is considering selling stock valued at more than 3 billion Swiss francs ($3 billion) as it seeks to boost capital levels. The news sent the stock sliding.
European and Asian stocks were modestly in the green, with U.S. futures higher, before a critical procedural vote on a Republican health-care bill to repeal Obamacare, while Janet Yellen is set to speak in Washington at 8:45am.
Just as Yellen & Co. has finally decided that 'Everything is Awesome' and started raising interest rates (the timing of which we're almost certain was in no way influenced by the conclusion of the recent election cycle), signs continue to mount that global economies are not as healthy as the Fed suddenly believes them to be. In fact, over just the past couple of days we've highlighted a litany of negative economic data points including crashing bank loan creation, surging auto loan delinquencies and continuous deterioration of the retail sector, just to name a few.
A court case in California has forced the release of emails between Monsanto and the EPA, and the contents are sickening. We now have certifiable proof that Monsanto has always known Roundup causes cancer. But [...]