Home builder, real estate services stocks surge on surprise jump in new home sales

Shares of housing market companies enjoyed a broad rally Friday, after data showing that new home sales surprisingly rose, and sharply, in the face of other signs showing a slowdown in the housing sector. The SPDR S&P Homebuilders ETF XHB, +2.80% rallied 2.9% in morning trading, with all 35 components trading higher. Among the more active home builders, shares of Lennar Corp. LEN, +1.73% hiked up 2.1%, D.R. Horton Inc. DHI, +0.43% rose 1.7% and PulteGroup Inc. PHM, +1.69% climbed 2.1%. Also in the homebuilders ETF, Home Depot Inc.’s stock HD, +2.75% gained 1.7% and Builders FirstSource Inc. shares BLDR, +3.29% surged 6.3%. In the real estate services space, shares of Redfin Corp. RDFN, +7.09% jumped 2.4% and Anywhere Real Estate Inc. HOUS, +1.28% climbed 2.0%. The U.S. Commerce Department said Friday that new home sales rose 10.7% to a seasonally adjusted rate of 696,000 in May from a revised 629,000 in April, while expectations were for a decline to 587,000 from an initial April estimate of 591,000. That followed data last week that showed existing home sales falling for the fourth-straight month, and housing starts that dropped to a two-year low.