[QUIRKS IN US NEW HOME SALES DATA] As we noted prior to the release of the home sales figures, November data are not the most reliable. That is nobody's fault. It's just seasonal fact of life. Quirks in today's data show what we mean. Sales in the Midwest rose 22.4% m/m after seasonal adjustment, because they managed to hold perfectly flat before seasonal adjustment. That took sales from down 26.7% y/y in October to flat in November. Sales in the West were up 19.0% m/m after seasonal adjustment, even though in the raw data, they were up just 1k, or 5.2%. The months supply ratio rose to a new cycle high of 7.7 months sales, but fell to a recent low of 6.3 months, after seasonal adjustment. This is not the kind of data to take very seriously.
