Two items to crankl into your financial ruminations.  The Case-shiller story first: Headline is Housing is up 2.7 percent year-on-year

YEAR-OVER-YEAR
The S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller U.S. National Home Price NSA Index, covering all nine U.S. census divisions, reported a 2.7% annual return for April, down from a 3.4% annual gain in the previous month. The 10-City Composite saw an annual increase of 4.1%, down from a 4.8% annual increase in the previous month. The 20-City Composite posted a year-over-year increase of 3.4%, down from a 4.1% increase in the previous month. New York again reported the highest annual gain among the 20 cities with a 7.9% increase in April, followed by Chicago and Detroit with annual increases of 6.0% and 5.5%, respectively. Tampa posted the lowest return, falling 2.2%

MONTH-OVER-MONTH
The pre-seasonally adjusted U.S. National Index saw slight upward trends in April, posting gains of 0.6%. The 10-City Composite and 20-City Composite Indices both reported gains of 0.7%. After seasonal adjustment, the U.S. National Index posted a decrease of -0.4%. Both the 10-City Composite and the 20-City Composite Indices saw a -0.3% decrease.

The cautionary part is how the rate of increase is leveling off:

On the Side

If you are gaming out the July FOMC odds of a rate deccrease, here’s an interesting part of the Chairman’s comments on the hill today:

“Inflation has eased significantly from its highs in mid-2022 but remains somewhat elevated relative to our 2 percent longer-run goal. Estimates based on the consumer price index and other data indicate that total personal consumption expenditures (PCE) prices rose 2.3 percent over the 12 months ending in May and that, excluding the volatile food and energy categories, core PCE prices rose 2.6 percent. Near-term measures of inflation expectations have moved up over recent months, as reflected in both market- and survey-based measures. Respondents to surveys of consumers, businesses, and professional forecasters point to tariffs as the driving factor. Beyond the next year or so, however, most measures of longer-term expectations remain consistent with our 2 percent inflation goal.”

We are 10-days out from the Fourth, so absent a real blow-off in the Middle East, we might otherwise be inclioned to a slightly bullish bias going into the end of next week.  Buit, time will tell…

After both numbers, Dow was holding a nearly 300-point gain.  Pass the nitrous?

-ure