Case-Shiller Home Prices Increase But Not by Much

Pre-market futures are up this morning — making up Friday’s pre-market losses — on the other side of the tariff policy coin: whereas Friday’s words from President Trump was that an additional +50% was going to be slapped onto the EU, over the weekend he changed his mind and postponed these new tariffs until July 9th.

As a result, the Dow is up +530 points at this hour, the S&P 500 is +80 and the Nasdaq is +320 points. We’re still down over the past five days of trading, and apparently beholden to the next news headline from the president, at least regarding tariff policy. Bond yields have cooled a tad this morning, as well: +4.48% on the 10-year, +3.99% on 2s and below 5% once again on the 30-year: +4.98%.

If the date July 9th rings a bell, it’s also the last notch on the calendar of the 90-day pause on reciprocal tariffs for all the U.S.’s trading partners. Which means if we do not see signed tariff agreements by that date — 6 weeks and 1 day from today — then we’ll once again be faced with the “Liberation Day” scenario that sent the stock market reeling for a solid week. Just something to keep in mind.

Durable Goods Mixed in April

Due to both this unpredictable tariff environment and the very nature of preliminary Durable Goods Orders (which are often volatile on the initial post), we see varying numbers in April Durable Goods this morning: -6.3% on headline was better than the -7.8% expected, and follows a downwardly revised +7.6% from the previous print. Ex-transportation, we see where that loss is derived: +0.2% with aircraft, etc. removed from the equation.

Non-defense, ex-aircraft — a proxy for general business capital spending — came in at -1.3%, the weakest figure we’ve seen since September of 2022 and much lower than the -0.2% anticipated. This may be interpreted as a hesitation on behalf of business owners until tariffs finally sift through (if they ever do), although revisions may eventually undo part or most of these figures.

Shipments came in at -0.1%, not far from expectations. This came following a 30-basis point (bps) upward revision to +0.5% from the previous month, which itself followed a very strong +0.6% for February. Again, these are uncertain times for all sorts of international trade. Best to just grin and bear it.

Case-Shiller Home Prices Up but Weakening

Considered the most accurate of home price reports, the Case-Shiller Home Prices index is out ahead of today’s opening bell, for the month of March. The 20-city survey reached +4.1%, with the 10-city coming in at +4.8% (down from +5.2% the prior month). Overall, home prices two months ago came in +3.4% higher. Urban markets performed slightly better than their rural counterparts. Prices remain elevated but are predicted to begin slowing over the next few years.

What to Expect from the Stock Market Today

After today’s open, Consumer Confidence for May comes out — expected to stand pat from the prior month at +86.0. This would keep this metric down at Covid-era levels, where we had spent most of the past five years above 100. Again, blame the uncertainty: it’s a hard market not only for business investment, but for consumer spending as well.

Once the closing bell sounds this afternoon, we’ll see earnings reports from cloud content management company Box BOX and ID software firm Okta OKTA. The next two days are where the quarterly earnings reports really come alive: Macy’s M on Wednesday morning and NVIDIA NVDA and Salesforce CRM after the close, with Costco COST and Best Buy BBY, among others, out Thursday morning.

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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