Stock Market Update

[BRIEFING.COM] The S&P 500 (flat), Nasdaq Composite (flat), and DJIA (+0.1%) hover near their baselines amid a lack of buying interest this morning. 

New home sales surged 20.5% month-over-month in August to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 800,000 units (Briefing.com consensus 650,000)—the strongest pace since January 2022—from an upwardly revised 664,000 (from 652,000) in July. On a year-over-year basis, new home sales were up 15.4%.

The key takeaway from the report is that the surge in new home sales occurred ahead of the larger drop in mortgage rates seen in September. Notably, there was a big uptick in the percentage of new homes sold over $800,000. That helps explain the large jump in average selling prices, and it may also be reflective of the large jump in stock prices lending some confidence to buying interest in the upper price brackets.

The iShares U.S. Construction ETF (+0.9%) saw a nice jump following the data release, with KB Home (KBH 63.52, +1.11, +1.78%) trading higher ahead of its earnings release after the close.