The Commerce Department released both new residential home sales and durable goods data from September today. According to the reports, new single-family home sales increased in September by 6.6 percent, but were 21.5 percent below September 2009’s sales, likely due to the lack of home buying tax credits available this year. The median sales price had increased from $216,600 in September 2009 to $223,800. You can access the full report here.
Manufactured durable goods orders increased 3.3 percent in September, but when excluding transportation, orders actually decreased .8 percent after rising 2 percent in August. August’s new orders sales figures for all manufacturing industries were also adjusted and increased from the previously reported $408.9 billion to $410.3 billion. You can see all the durable goods data here.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average was down consistently today, falling as much as 145 points mid-day. The Dow closed down 43.18 points to 11,126.28. The Nasdaq rose 5.97 points to 2,503.26 and the S&P 500 dropped 3.19 points to 1,182.45.
European markets were down on Wednesday while Asian markets were mixed.
Stocks in the news: Sprint Nextel Corp (NYSE: S), Broadcom Corp (NASDAQ: BRCM), Life Technologies Corp (NASDAQ: LIFE).
