Dow declined 158, advancers over decliners 5-4 & NAZ bounced back 81. The MLP index added 2+ to the 191s & the REIT index was steady at 480. Junk bond funds hardly moved & Treasuries were on holiday. Oil crawled higher (but below earlier highs) & gold jumped 16 to 1864 (more on both below).
AMJ (Alerian MLP Index tracking fund)
![Live 24 hours gold chart [Kitco Inc.]](https://www.kitco.com/images/live/gold.gif?0.2180338269244485)
The need for a larger home & desire to move closer to friends & family during the COVID-19 pandemic coupled with low inventory & mortgage interest rates has spurred a record pace for home sales over the last year, a new survey by the National Association of Realtors (NAR) reveals. According to NAR, US homes listed between Jul 2020 & Jun 2021 typically sold within one week, a record low. Home buyers during the period typically bought their home for 100% of the seller's asking price, the highest median recorded since 2002, & approximately 35% of survey respondents purchased their home beyond the asking price. Sellers reported selling their homes for a median of $85K more than their purchase prices, a jump from $66K last year. Approximately 46% of respondents purchased a larger home, while 28% purchased a same-size home. On average, buyers said the process of finding a home to purchase took 8 weeks, unchanged from last year. Approximately 41% of home buyers initially looked online for properties as a first step, while another 19% said the first step involved contacting an agent. Approximately 87% of buyers purchased their residence through an agent or broker, while 7% bought directly from a builder or builder's agent. Among home sellers, 90% of respondents worked with an agent to sell their homes, compared to 7% which were for-sale-by-owner sellers & less than 1% sold via an iBuyer, or instant buyer. About 29% of first-time home buyers said that saving for a down payment proved to be the most difficult step in the entire buying process. Approximately 28% of first-time home buyers surveyed reported using a gift or loan from friends or family in order to make a down payment. For repeat buyers, 56% said they used equity generated from the sale of a primary residence toward their down payment. The typical down payment was 7% for first-time home buyers & 17% among repeat buyers. Home buyers looking to make the move this year were also found to have had a shorter occupancy in the current home than the previous year, with tenure in the home dropping from 10 to 8 years, the largest single year change since NAR began collecting such data. In general, buyers said they expected to live in their homes for a median of 12 years, while 18% said that they were never moving. Historically, tenure in the home has been 6-7 years, but experienced an increase to nine to 10 years following the last recession. This year, the typical first-time buyer was 33 years old, equal to the previous year, while the typical repeat buyer age climbed to an all-time high of 56 years old. Approximately 60% of recent buyers during the period were married, down from a high of 81% in 1985. However, the share of single women buyers rose to 19% from a low of 15% in 2014. The shares of single men & unmarried buyers remained at 9%, respectively.
Homes sell at record pace, sellers get asking price
New filings for jobless benefit dropped by 4K to 267K last week, the gov reported. The estimated called for new claims to total a seasonally adjusted 265K. Last month new unemployment filings dropped below the key 300K level for the first time since the start of the viral outbreak in Mar 2020. If new claims keep falling as expected, they could soon return to precrisis levels in the low 200Ks. The US economy is accelerating again & businesses have more than 10M jobs to fill, but they can’t find enough workers owing to one of the biggest labor shortages in decades. The speed of the recovery will depend on how quickly the Ms of people missing from the labor force return to work. Without more labor, companies can't produce enough goods & services to meet demand. The number of people already collecting state jobless benefits, meanwhile, rose by 59K to 2.16M. It's the first increase in 6 weeks, but the small rise still leaves continuing claims near a pandemic low. Altogether, 2.57M people were reportedly receiving jobless benefits throu state or federal programs. Just under 2M were collecting benefits before the pandemic.
Jobless claims sink to new pandemic low
Gold futures scored a 6th-straight session gain, with concerns over the surge in US inflation prompting prices to settling at their highest since Jun. Gold for Dec rose $15 (0.8%) to settle at $1863 an ounce, with the most-active contract logging the highest settlement since Jun 14. Prices stretched their winning streak into a 6th consecutive session, the longest stretch of gains since the 6-day climb ended May 20. Yesterday gold climbed 1%, finding support on the heels of a 0.9% jump in consumer-prices index, which came in well above the 0.6% that was expected. Annually, inflation climbed to 6.2%, the biggest jump in over 31 years.
Gold continues to surge after inflation ...
Oil futures ended higher to recoup a small portion of the losses suffered a day earlier, after US inflation data sent bond yields & the $ soaring & underlined fears of a potential release of crude from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve. West Texas Intermediate crude for Dec rose 25¢ to settle at $81.59 a barrel after posting a loss of 3.3% yesterday. Jan Brent crude, the global benchmark, rose 23¢ at $82.87 a barrel a day after suffering a decline of 2.5%. Crude fell sharply yesterday, breaking a 3-day winning streak, after the Oct consumer price index showed a year-over-year jump of 6.2%, the strongest rate of inflation in nearly 31 years. Oil was pressured as Pres Biden responded by giving top priority to reversing inflation, targeting the sharp rise in energy prices in particular. In a monthly report released today, OPEC left its forecast for 2022 growth in oil demand unchanged at 4.2M barrels a day, but trimmed its outlook for growth this year by around 160K barrels to 5.7M barrels a day citing the effect of high prices. That would put global oil demand at 100.6M barrels a day in 2022, around 500K barrels a day above 2019 levels, while 2021 demand is seen at 96.4M barrels a day. Oil traders continued to digest today's weekly data from the Energy Information Administration (EIA), which showed that domestic crude inventories, which exclude those in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), rose by 1M barrels last week, matching the forecast. The EIA also reported declines in gasoline & distillate stockpiles.
Oil logs a partial rebound as traders weigh prospects for supply and demand
Stocks were mixed. The Dow started the day lower & slid further in the PM. Meanwhile NAZ had a good day. Investors grappled with the implications of inflation that has
soared to its highest in decades & Q3 earnings that are
starting to show signs of slowing growth. Dow remains overbought, as shown below.
Dow Jones Industrials
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