Home construction up, building permits fall

The leverage setup in lumber and recent trend line break of the counter trend rally sugggested the short-lived nature of the housing rebound long before the new homes sales or building permits data.

Lumber Futures Continuous Contract and the Commercial Traders COT Futures and Options Stochastic Weighted Average of Net Long As A % of Open Interest:

Construction of new homes rose more than expected in April, but new building permits fell sharply, signaling that the building industry's rebound could be short-lived.

The Commerce Department says construction of new homes and apartments rose 5.8 percent last month to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 672,000. The results were the highest since October 2008 and were driven by a 10 percent increase in the single-family market.

Source: finance.yahoo.com