Homes for Sale Reach Record Low

The stock market is up modestly this morning but most of its attention is on Russia and Ukraine. We’re going into a three-day weekend so a lot can happen between today’s close and Tuesday’s open.

One economic report to pass on. Existing home sales rose 6.7% last month. What makes that interesting is that there’s a record low in the supply of homes. Tight supply and strong demand pushed the median price of a home sold in January to $350,300, an increase of 15.4% from January 2021.

The supply of homes for sale fell to a record low, down 16.5% from a year ago. There were just 860,000 homes for sale at the end of January. At the current sales pace it would take just 1.6 months to exhaust that inventory. A 4- to 6-month supply is considered a balanced market. That is also a record low.

There are two news items affecting our stocks.

Abbott Laboratories (ABT) said it is “recalling powdered baby formulas, including Similac, made at a Michigan facility after four consumers complained about bacterial infections in infants who consumed the products.” The stock is down about 3% today.

Sherwin-Williams (SHW) named Heidi Petz its new president and COO, effective March 1.

Posted by on February 18th, 2022 at 10:34 am


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