By Jann Swanson | Mortgage News Daily
It was a bad day on Wall Street Thursday for housing stocks. In no particular order Census Bureau data was released showing that new home sales had declined by 8.1 percent in June compared to May and that May’s numbers weren’t nearly as shiny as was first thought.
Then several of the big homebuilders released quarterly earnings that missed analysts expectations. An already jittery stock market did not take it well. The exchange traded fund that trucks home construction fell to a two month low, losing 3.4 percent of its value as most homebuilder and home builder-related stocks fell. ITB was down another 0.79 percent in early trading on Friday.