As I wrote yesterday, existing home sales is a crucial metric for home-related stocks, but it's horribly overlooked by most investors. This morning, October existing home sales was released.
The report, in short:
October growth accelerated from September. This is a good sign for current trends at home-related companies.
The details:
October's numbers grew by 4.7% year over year, which was an acceleration from the 2.1% growth in September -- a welcome sign from the dumpy trends over the last year! Unfortunately, there's a lot of noise in the existing home sales number on a month to month basis. However, numbers are trending in the right direction, and if we can get some consistency in the numbers, it definitely carries positive implications for home-related stocks and their sales trends. This also lines up with Home Depot's comments that November started out strong.
Remember: existing home sales correlate with sales trends for home retailers. Below is the updated chart comparing existing home sales to Home Depot sales trends (comps), as an example:
