Shares of home builders are diverging this morning on sluggish mortgage data from the Mortgage Bankers Association (MBA), showing a year-over-year decline last week in new mortgage applications from the year-earlier period.
Shares of the largest builders are rising, including D.R. Horton (DHI), up 6 cents, or 1%, at $9.42, Toll Brothers (TOLL), up 25 cents, or 1.5%, at $17.22, and Pulte Homes (PHM), up 20 cents, or 2.3%, at $9, while shares of smaller firms KB Home (KBH), Lennar (LEN) declining. An exception is $1.08 billion (market cap) Centex, a smaller builder, whose shares are up 22 cents, or 2.6%, at $8.68.
The MBA said mortgage applications fell 7.4% the week of June 26 from the prior year period, while refinancings fell 30% from the prior week, or 4.5% on a seasonally-adjusted basis, the lowest level since November.
With Ten-year Treasury yields again on the rise, rates on a 30-year fixed mortgage were in the vicinity of 5.5% to 5.9% in the New York Metro area, according to Bankrate.com.
Confounding the somewhat glum applications news is a National Association of Realtors report this morning that May pending sales (that is, contracts to sell not yet completed) for existing homes rose over April by .1%, the fourth consecutive monthly rise, according to Bloomberg, and an increase of 4.6% from a year earlier.
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