U.S. new home sales rise in line with expectations in August

New home sales in the U.S. rose in the month of August, coming in line with consensus expectations. Home sales rose 3.5 percent to 629k, as compared with the consensus expectations of 630k. The July data were downwardly revised to 608k from 627k and net revisions in this report came up to 40k, owing to downside revisions to June and July.

The rise in August was widespread with sales rising in the Northeast, Midwest and West. The South was the only region to report a fall, but at -6k this was fairly modest. Strong sales growth led to a modest fall in months’ supply to 6.1.

Data on prices for new homes rebounded. The average price rose 5.2 percent year-on-year and the median price rose 1.9 percent. The August report for new home implies a rebound in sales after they had been weakening consistently earlier in the summer.

The strong sales figures were countered to some degree by downside revisions to prior month’s data, noted Barclays in a research report. In all, the estimate for brokers’ commissions did not have a huge effect on the tracking estimates.

“As a result, after rounding our Q3 GDP tracker was left unchanged at 3.2 percent”, added Barclays.

At 15:00 GMT the FxWirePro's Hourly Strength Index of US Dollar was neutral at 32.346. For more details on FxWirePro's Currency Strength Index, visit http://www.fxwirepro.com/currencyindex