by Calculated Risk on 3/05/2023 09:36:00 AM

Here is another monthly update on framing lumber prices.

This graph shows CME random length framing futures through March 3rd.

Lumber is currently at $369 per 1000 board feet.

This is down from the peak of $1,733, and down 72% from $1,441 a year ago.

Prices are down 8% compared to the same week in 2019, and below the pre-pandemic levels of around $400.

Click on graph for larger image.

There is somewhat of a seasonal demand for lumber, and lumber prices usually peak in April or May.

It is unlikely we will see a significant runup in prices this Spring due to the housing slowdown.

by Calculated Risk on 3/04/2023 02:11:00 PM

At the Calculated Risk Real Estate Newsletter this week:

• Case-Shiller: National House Price Index "Decline Continued" to 5.8% year-over-year increase in December

• Year-over-year Rent Growth Continues to Decelerate

• Freddie Mac House Price Index Declines for 7th Consecutive Month in January

• Lawler: AMH Net Seller of Existing Single-Family Homes, “Investor” Home Purchases Plunged

• Inflation Adjusted House Prices 3.9% Below Peak Price-to-rent index is 7.1% below recent peak

• Measures of Shelter in the CPI and PCE price indexes Still Increasing

This is usually published 4 to 6 times a week and provides more in-depth analysis of the housing market.

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by Calculated Risk on 3/04/2023 08:11:00 AM

The key report scheduled for this week is the February employment report.

Fed Chair Powell presents the Semiannual Monetary Policy Report to the Congress on Tuesday and Wednesday.

----- Monday, March 6th -----
No major economic releases scheduled.

----- Tuesday, March 7th -----
8:00 AM: Corelogic House Price index for January.

10:00 AM: Testimony, Fed Chair Jerome Powell, Semiannual Monetary Policy Report to the Congress, Before the U.S. Senate Committee on Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs

----- Wednesday, March 8th -----
7:00 AM ET: The Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA) will release the results for the mortgage purchase applications index.

8:15 AM: The ADP Employment Report for February. This report is for private payrolls only (no government). The consensus is for 195,000 payroll jobs added in February, up from 106,000 added in January.

10:00 AM ET: Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey for January from the BLS.

This graph shows job openings (black line), hires (purple), Layoff, Discharges and other (red column), and Quits (light blue column) from the JOLTS.

Jobs openings increased in December to 11.0 million from 10.4 million in November.

10:00 AM: Testimony, Fed Chair Jerome Powell, Semiannual Monetary Policy Report to the Congress, Before the U.S. House Financial Services Committee

2:00 PM: the Federal Reserve Beige Book, an informal review by the Federal Reserve Banks of current economic conditions in their Districts.

----- Thursday, March 9th -----
8:30 AM: The initial weekly unemployment claims report will be released.  The consensus is for 195 thousand initial claims, up from 190 thousand last week.

12:00 PM: Q4 Flow of Funds Accounts of the United States from the Federal Reserve.

----- Friday, March 10th -----
8:30 AM: Employment Report for February.   The consensus is for 200,000 jobs added, and for the unemployment rate to be unchanged at 3.4%.

There were 517,000 jobs added in January, and the unemployment rate was at 3.4%.

This graph shows the job losses from the start of the employment recession, in percentage terms.

The current employment recession was by far the worst recession since WWII in percentage terms.

As of January, total jobs were 2.70 million above pre-pandemic levels. This was the last update for this graph this employment cycle.

by Calculated Risk on 3/03/2023 09:14:00 PM

Note: Mortgage rates are from MortgageNewsDaily.com and are for top tier scenarios.

On COVID (focus on hospitalizations and deaths).  Data is now weekly.

The winter surge was much smaller in 2023 than for the previous two years, and hopefully cases, hospitalizations and deaths will continue to decline - and set new pandemic lows in a few months.

COVID Metrics
	Now	Week Ago	Goal
New Cases per Week2	226,618	238,714	≤35,0001
Hospitalized2	20,805	22,509	≤3,0001
Deaths per Week2	2,290	2,368	≤3501
1my goals to stop weekly posts, 2Weekly for Cases, Currently Hospitalized, and Deaths 🚩 Increasing number weekly for Cases, Hospitalized, and Deaths ✅ Goal met.

Click on graph for larger image.

This graph shows the weekly (columns) number of deaths reported.

The pandemic low for weekly deaths was the week of July 7, 2021, at 1,690 deaths and for cases, the low was 82,186.  For hospitalizations, the low was 9,821. 

by Calculated Risk on 3/03/2023 04:08:00 PM

From the Association of American Railroads (AAR) Rail Time Indicators. Graphs and excerpts reprinted with permission.

Coal, chemicals, and grain combined account for more than half of U.S. non-intermodal rail volume. When all three are down, it’s extremely likely total carloads are down too. That’s what happened in February 2023 compared with February 2022: total carloads fell by 15,101 carloads, or 1.6%.
...
U.S. intermodal volume fell 8.4% in February, its 12th straight decline.
emphasis added

Click on graph for larger image.

This graph from the Rail Time Indicators report shows the six-week average of U.S. Carloads in 2021, 2022 and 2022:

Total originated U.S. rail carloads in February 2023 were 905,744, down 1.6%, or 15,101 carloads, from February 2022. Carloads averaged 226,436 per week in February 2023. February 2021 was lower (an average of just 206,201 per week, thanks to severe weather that month), but otherwise February 2023 was the lowestvolume February for total carloads in our records that go back to 1988.

The second graph shows the six-week average (not monthly) of U.S. intermodal in 2021, 2022 and 2023: (using intermodal or shipping containers):

Intermodal originations, which are not included in carloads, totaled 943,979 in February 2023, down 8.4%, or 86,351 containers and trailers, from February 2022. The weekly average in February 2023 was 235,995, the fewest for February since 2015 (when volumes were down due to labor strife as West Coast ports).

The 8.4% year-over-year decline in February was the 12th straight decline and the largest percentage decline in those 12 months.

by Calculated Risk on 3/03/2023 02:53:00 PM

From BofA:

Data received since our update last Friday lowered our 1Q tracking estimate from 1.3% q/q saar to 0.9% q/q saar. The reduction in our tracking estimate was driven by weaker data on personal consumption, trade and inventories. [Mar 3rd estimate]
emphasis added

From Goldman:

We left our Q1 GDP tracking estimate unchanged after rounding at +2.0% (qoq ar) but lowered our domestic final sales forecast by 0.1pp to +2.3%. [Mar 1st estimate]

And from the Altanta Fed: GDPNow

The GDPNow model estimate for real GDP growth (seasonally adjusted annual rate) in the first quarter of 2023 is 2.3 percent on March 1, down from 2.8 percent on February 27. After recent releases from the US Census Bureau and the Institute for Supply Management, the nowcasts of first-quarter real gross private domestic investment growth and first-quarter real government spending growth decreased from -5.1 percent and 2.0 percent, respectively, to -6.1 percent and 1.5 percent, respectively, while the nowcast of the contribution of the change in real net exports to first-quarter real GDP growth decreased from 0.82 percentage points to 0.60 percentage points. [Mar 1st estimate]

by Calculated Risk on 3/03/2023 11:57:00 AM

Today, in the Calculated Risk Real Estate Newsletter: Inflation Adjusted House Prices 3.9% Below Peak; Price-to-rent index is 7.1% below recent peak

Excerpt:

It has been 17 years since the bubble peak. In the December Case-Shiller house price index released on Tuesday, the seasonally adjusted National Index (SA), was reported as being 61% above the bubble peak in 2006. However, in real terms, the National index (SA) is about 11% above the bubble peak (and historically there has been an upward slope to real house prices).  The composite 20, in real terms, is about 1% above the bubble peak.

These inflation adjusted indexes have been declining for seven months in real terms. ...

In October 2004, Fed economist John Krainer and researcher Chishen Wei wrote a Fed letter on price to rent ratios: House Prices and Fundamental Value. Kainer and Wei presented a price-to-rent ratio using the OFHEO house price index and the Owners' Equivalent Rent (OER) from the BLS.

Note that OER is lagging behind other measures of rent.

Here is a similar graph using the Case-Shiller National and Composite 20 House Price Indexes. This graph shows the price to rent ratio (January 2000 = 1.0). The price-to-rent ratio had been moving more sideways but picked up significantly following the onset of the pandemic.

On a price-to-rent basis, the Case-Shiller National and Composite 20 indexes declined again in December for the seventh consecutive month. The price-to-rent index for the National index is off 7.1% from the recent peak, and the Composite 20 based index is off 8.7%.

There is much more in the article. You can subscribe at https://calculatedrisk.substack.com/

by Calculated Risk on 3/03/2023 10:03:00 AM

(Posted with permission). The ISM® Services index was at 55.1%, down from 55.2% last month. The employment index increased to 54.0%, from 50.0%. Note: Above 50 indicates expansion, below 50 in contraction.

From the Institute for Supply Management: Services PMI® at 55.1% February 2023 Services ISM® Report On Business®

Economic activity in the services sector expanded in February for the second consecutive month as the Services PMI® registered 55.1 percent, say the nation's purchasing and supply executives in the latest Services ISM® Report On Business®. The sector has grown in 32 of the last 33 months, with the lone contraction in December.

The report was issued today by Anthony Nieves, CPSM, C.P.M., A.P.P., CFPM, Chair of the Institute for Supply Management® (ISM®) Services Business Survey Committee: “In February, the Services PMI® registered 55.1 percent, 0.1 percentage point lower than January’s reading of 55.2 percent. The composite index indicated growth in February for the second consecutive month after a reading of 49.2 percent in December, the first contraction since May 2020 (45.4 percent). The Business Activity Index registered 56.3 percent, a 4.1-percentage point decrease compared to the reading of 60.4 percent in January. The New Orders Index expanded in February for the second consecutive month after contracting in December for the first time since May 2020; the figure of 62.6 percent is 2.2 percentage points higher than the January reading of 60.4 percent.
emphasis added

The PMI was higher than expected and the employment index was above 50.

by Calculated Risk on 3/03/2023 08:57:00 AM

The BEA released their estimate of vehicle sales for February yesterday.

This graph shows heavy truck sales since 1967 using data from the BEA. The dashed line is the February 2023 seasonally adjusted annual sales rate (SAAR).

Heavy truck sales really collapsed during the great recession, falling to a low of 180 thousand SAAR in May 2009.  Then heavy truck sales increased to a new all-time high of 570 thousand SAAR in April 2019.

Click on graph for larger image.

Note: "Heavy trucks - trucks more than 14,000 pounds gross vehicle weight."

Heavy truck sales declined sharply at the beginning of the pandemic, falling to a low of 308 thousand SAAR in May 2020.  

Heavy truck sales were at 450 thousand SAAR in February, down from 503 thousand in January, and essentially unchanged from 451 thousand SAAR in February 2022.  

Usually, heavy truck sales decline sharply prior to a recession.   Sales were solid in February.

by Calculated Risk on 3/02/2023 08:22:00 PM

From Matthew Graham at Mortgage News Daily: Mortgage Rates Now Back Above 7%

Mortgage rates have been hit hard on two fronts over the past month. The first front is the obvious one: the bond market has moved in a way that forces rates to go higher. To be fair, it's almost always the bond market that forces rates to go wherever they're going.
...
There's a different problem in the "everything else" category right now. The regulator overseeing Fannie and Freddie recently changed some of the upfront fees required for all conforming mortgages (conforming = guaranteed by Fannie and Freddie). Depending on a borrower's credit score and the amount of a home's value they wish to borrow, their rate could instantly rise by 0.125% simply because a lender implemented the new fee requirements.

Without the impact of those fees, rates could still be in the high 6% range, or close to it. As it stands, the average lender is now back up into the low 7's for a well-qualified 30yr fixed scenario. These aren't the highest levels we've seen during this cycle, but they are the highest in more than 4 months (and not too far away from the long-term highs just under 7.4%). [30 year fixed 7.10%]
emphasis added