With a strong economy and prospects for inflation to recede further, home builders appear optimistic about the spring selling season despite an uptick in mortgage rates. The National Association of Homebuilders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index rose for a second month in October, adding two points to 43. Traffic from prospective buyers and current sales conditions each edged up by two points. Expectations for the next six months, rose by four points for a second straight month to a solid 57. A reading below 50 indicates that more builders see conditions as poor than good, so there is plenty of room for improvement in the headline number. "While housing affordability remains low, builders are feeling more optimistic about 2025 market conditions," said NAHB Chairman Carl Harris. To be sure, it may be hard for sentiment to keep rising unless mortgage rates fall back towards 6%. Last month, when the Federal Open Market Committee reduced the benchmark funds rate by 50 basis points to a range of 4.75% - 5.0%, the 30-year mortgage rate was 6.08%, down from 7.2% in March. Last week it was back up to 6.44% according to Freddie Mac. On October 18, The Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Census Bureau reported that Housing starts in September were down about 1% from a year earlier, to an annual rate of 1.35 million. Starts peaked at 1.8 million in April 2022, just a month after the Fed's first of 11 rate hikes. The National Association of Realtors will report Existing Home Sales for September this morning. We expect sales of 3.92 million (SAAR) which would be a decline of 1.5% from September 2023. On October 24, we expect the Commerce Department to report September New Home Sales of 720,000 (SAAR), up almost 4% from a year earlier. The S&P/Case-Shiller National Home Price Index rose 4.9% in July. We expect growth to soften to 4.5% for August. The Zillow Home Value Index rose by 2.9% in August and 2.7% in October. We remain upbeat on the sector because demographics point to strong demand amid a decades-long shortage of affordable homes.

The Vickers Top Buyers & Sellers is a daily report that identifies the five companies the largest insider purchase transactions based on the dollar value of the transactions as well as the five companies the largest insider sales transactions based on the dollar value of the transactions.

Small- and mid-cap stocks (SMID), despite bursts of outperformance, have underperformed large-caps year to date - as they have over the past five years. But they may be in a better position to generate market-beating returns going forward. SMID companies tend to focus on domestic markets, so their businesses could be less disrupted by the fallout from unrest in the Middle East, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, issues in China, or other geopolitical developments. As well, the prices of SMID stocks generally are lower than the prices of large-caps. SMID stocks can be risky, but despite those risks, diversified investors look to have exposure to small- and mid-caps based on the long-term performance record. We estimate that 20% of the U.S. stock market's capitalization is comprised of SMID stocks.

The Vickers Top Buyers & Sellers is a daily report that identifies the five companies the largest insider purchase transactions based on the dollar value of the transactions as well as the five companies the largest insider sales transactions based on the dollar value of the transactions.