US data recap, GDP tracker unchanged - Nomura

Analysts at Nomura reviewed the key US data from overnight and updated their GDP tracker.

Key Quotes:

"Case-Shiller home price index: 

The 20-city composite Case-Shiller home price index increased 6.8% y-o-y in February, above expectations (Consensus: 6.35%). Cities in the West continued to show the fastest home price appreciation, with Seattle (+12.7%), Las Vegas (+11.6%) and San Francisco (+10.1%) leading the way. The headline 6.8% reading for the 20-city composite is the highest since June 2014. Steady demand in a strong economy combined with continued low inventory will likely bolster home price appreciation over the near term.

New home sales: 

New home sales rose solidly by 4.0% m-o-m in March to an annualized 694k, above expectations (Nomura: 620k, Consensus: 630k), with upward revisions to January and February sales. Strong March data and the upward revisions point to better-than-expected sales activity in Q1. Solid gains in new home sales appear consistent with households that have remained confident about their near-term economic outlook throughout Q1. However, deteriorating home affordability could hurt demand by making it more difficult for first-time home buyers to enter the market.

Conference Board’s consumer confidence: 

Conference Board’s consumer confidence index increased 1.7 index points to 128.7 in April, above expectations (Nomura: 124.3, Consensus: 126.0). This report stands in contrast to the University of Michigan’s preliminary April consumer survey where concerns about escalating trade tensions dampened overall confidence. Moreover, the Conference Board report indicates that consumers’ optimistic outlook on the economy in light of steady job and income growth may have outweighed trade concerns. The labor differential index (the difference between those reporting jobs “plentiful” versus “hard to get”) declined slightly to 22.9 from 23.8 but remained near multi-year highs, a good sign for the April BLS employment report. We think the elevated confidence provides further reason to expect consumer spending to pick up this year despite a somewhat weaker-than-expected Q1.

GDP tracking update: 

Stronger-than-expected March new home sales with backward revisions imply greater contribution from brokers’ commissions to real GDP growth in Q1. After rounding, however, our Q1 real GDP tracking estimate remains unchanged at 1.6% q-o-q saar."