A number of on again, off again, stories that Russia was planning to meet with the members of the OPEC cartel to negotiate production cuts drove oil prices higher last week, but even now it's still not clear if there was any actual communication between any leaders of the countries to bring about such a meeting
While the Dow hit 14,000 and Wall Street cheered, economic indicators cast a broadening dark shadow. Wall street is partying like it is March 2000. Yet Q4 GDP showed economic contraction.
Nominal new home prices plunge record -15.1% yr/yr to January yet sales plunge and inventories soar; durable goods orders also plunged in January.
The key finding in today’s Census Bureau report on new single-family home sales in January is that the median nominal price plunged -15.1% yr/yr, the worst decline on record back to 1963. New home prices were down -7.8% in the year ending December 2007.
Also very important is that the inventory of unsold new homes soared to a 9.9 month supply in January, the worst glut of empty new homes since October 1981. Unsold inventories represented a 9.5 month supply in December and a 7.2 month supply in January 2007.
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