Another ugly day for the Nasdaq as AMZN continues to get hit hard, although off its lows, on all kinds of rumors and speculations.  Axios reported that President Trump was looking into changing AMZN’s tax treatment as well as entertaining having the DoJ investigate antitrust issues.  The White House has denied this, for now.  

The S&P500 is hovering around the flat line while the Dow is trying to hold on to a .30% gain.  Advancers are leading decliners 1594/1296 on the NYSE, but it’s a different story for the Nasdaq where decliners outpace advancers 1212/986.

Oil is down today after the EIA reported a build of 1.6 million barrels for the week of March 23 versus estimates for a decrease of 287,000 barrels. 

This morning, we received two reports on the housing front.  Pending home sales for February rose 3.1% to 107.5 compared to the previous month 104.3.  Pending sales is forward looking, it is based on signed contracts that have not yet closed.  Typically, it takes four to six weeks to close a sale after the contract has been signed.  Year over year, sales are down 4.1%.

According to Lawrence Yun, National Association of Realtors, “Contract signings rebounded in most areas in February, but the gains were not large enough to keep up with last February’s level, which was the second highest in over a decade (112.1)¹,” he said. “The expanding economy and healthy job market are generating sizeable homebuyer demand, but the miniscule number of listings on the market and its adverse effect on affordability are squeezing buyers and suppressing overall activity.” He added, “Expect ongoing volatility in the Northeast region at least through March. Although pending sales there bounced back in February following January’s cold weather-related decline, the multiple winter storms over these last few weeks likely put a chill on contract signings once again this month.”

The Mortgage Bankers Association's (MBA's) Market Composite Index is a measure of mortgage application volume.  For the week ended March 23, it was up 4.8%, on a seasonally adjusted basis, compared to the previous week.  The Refinancing Index portion of the composite index was up 7%, while the Purchase Index was up 3% month over month.

These two reports have investors hopeful that the all-important spring selling season is off to a strong start.  iShares US Real Estate ETF is changing hands at $75.27 up $1.25 (1.69%).

In other housing related news:  A Redfin survey taken in late 2017 indicated that only 6% of prospective buyers would cancel their purchase plans if mortgage rates rose above 5%. 

•          27% of respondents indicate they might slow down their search and see if rates come head back down
•          21% said they would increase their urgency to buy before rates moved higher
•          21% said would have to buy a smaller house to keep payments affordable
•          The remaining 25% said it would have no impact on their purchase plans 
•          Currently, the 30-year fixed rate mortgage is hovering near 4.45%

GDP for the final read for the fourth quarter of 2017 was 2.9%.   Housing contributes about 17-18% of GDP:

•          Private residential investment, roughly 5% of GDP
•          Consumption spending on housing services, approximately 12% of GDP

In the fourth quarter, investment in residential housing increased at 12.8% from 13.0% in the previous report and has declined for two consecutive quarters on weak home sales as supply remains constrained.