US New Homes sales fall but beat forecasts. Durable Goods fall for second month in a row in February. - CountingPips Forex & Currency Trading Blog

March 26, 2008 - Forex Economic News

US New Homes sales fall but beat forecasts. Durable Goods fall for second month in a row in February.

New Home Sales in the United States beat market expectations today but did not surpass January's total. New home sales data, released by the Department of Commerce, fell 1.8 percent in February for an annual rate of 590,000 which fell short of January's revised total of 601,000 sales. Market forecasts had expected that new home sales would decrease by 1.7 percent for a total of 578,000 annual sales. February's annual sales rate compared to February 2007 is down by 29.8 percent. The median sales price of new homes registered $244,100 in February down from $250,800 in February 2007. The average sales price came in at $296,400 for February which was down from $321,500 in February 2007.

Durable Goods decline in February.

Durable goods orders in the U.S. fell 1.7 percent for February in news released by the U.S. Commerce Department today following up January's 4.7 percent decline. February saw a $3.6 billion drop in new orders for durable goods to a total of $210.6 billion. Market expectations had forecasted that durable goods orders would increase by 0.7 percent. New orders excluding transportation fell by 2.6 percent. Durable goods are products manufactured in the U.S. and considered to last more than three years.
February results for shipments of durable goods decreased by 2.8 percent or $6.0 billion. Unfilled orders increased 0.8 percent and durable good inventories increased 0.5 percent from January which saw a 0.6 gain. February nondefense orders for new goods fell by 1.0 percent while defense orders for goods declined by 10.1 percent.

The U.S. dollar has been trading generally lower this morning against the major currencies. The dollar has lost ground to the yen, aussie, kiwi, euro and Swiss franc while gaining some ground against the GBP pound.

Tags: durable goods, new home sales, house sales, us manufacturing, us dollar, us economy, forex

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