In May, the New Home Sales Index fell 2.5% to its second-lowest pace in 17 years, and economists expect another decline in the June report to be released Friday by the U.S. Census Bureau.
The index of sales has fallen in six of the past seven months and currently stands at an annual pace of 512k. The consensus looks for a 1.8% decline to a pace of 503k sales in June, but the range of forecasts varies from a low of 480k to a high of 530k.
Friday's highlights include the release of U.S. durable goods and new home sales for June along with a final look at consumer sentiment for the United States. There are no major scheduled macroeconomic releases or events for Canada.
At 8:30 a.m. EDT, the U.S. Commerce Department will release durable goods orders for June. Economists expect a 0.3% month-over-month decline...
The Miami Herald's investigative team reported on Sunday that the state has approved over 10,000 mortgage broker licenses for convicted felons since 2000; over 4,000 were issued to individuals who had been convicted of crimes such as fraud, extortion, racketeering, and bank robbery crimes that are specifically prohibited by the licensing statute...
New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo said he is suing UBS AG for misleading investors into buying auction-rate securities just five months before the market collapsed.
"Not only is UBS guilty of committing a flagrant breach of trust between the bank and its customers, its top executives jumped ship as soon as the securities market started to collapse, leaving...
"The U.S. and global financial systems are going through a very challenging period of adjustment. The critical imperative today is to help facilitate that adjustment and to cushion its impact on the broader economy. The forces that made the system vulnerable to this crisis took a long time to build up, and the system will need some time to work through their aftermath," said Geithner.
"The U.S. housing market continues to be very weak, and with the inventory of unsold homes continuing to rise we are unlikely to see any meaningful turnaround in the sector in the near term," said Millan Mulraine, economics strategist at TD Securities.
The NAR said foreclosures represent one-third to 40% of all sales and cause a downward distortion to the price data.
The U.S National homeowner housing vacancy rate slipped to 2.8% in the second quarter, a 0.1% decline from the previous quarter's 2.9% rate, according to the U.S. Census Bureau report released on Thursday.
Testifying before the House Financial Services Committee, SEC Chairman Christopher Cox said he needs more authority to have mandatory supervision of investment banks.
"Legislative improvements are necessary," said Cox in his opening remarks. "The Commission should be given a statutory mandate to perform this function at the holding company level, along with the authority to require compliance."
U.S. jobless claims and existing home sales will dominate the scheduled events of the day, along with testimony from New York Fed President Timothy Geithner (voter) and SEC Chairman Chris Cox. Meanwhile, European markets will be paying attention to the release of the Belgian business confidence index and comments from Bank of England Deputy Governor Charles Bean.
After the U.S. House of Representatives passed a housing bill including provisions for the creation of a new GSE regulator and a liquidity backstop to help the beleaguered Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, U.S. Treasury Secretary Paulson expressed his gratitude for the bill having passed quickly.
"As I have said before, the GSE portions of this bill are orders of magnitude more important to turning the corner on the housing correction and...