Posted on 07/18/2008 5:19:41 AM PDT by TigerLikesRooster
Housing Numbers Were Skewed, Lehman Says
(RTTNews) - Housing starts were biased higher in June due to a change in the building code in New York City, observe the analysts at Lehman Brothers. Starts jumped 9.1% to 1.066 million in June as multi-family construction in the Northeast surged 102.6%. Effective July 1, the 421-a tax incentive program for multi-family construction in NYC will expire, encouraging builders to rush to start construction. This also pushed up permits for multi-family construction in the Northeast, which jumped 73%, as developers rushed to lay foundation after receiving permits. We expect a reversal in multi-family construction in the Northeast over the next few months.
(Excerpt) Read more at nasdaq.com ...
Ping!
This is old news and was priced into the market yesterday morning. The New York numbers didn’t prevent a 200 point rally in the Dow.
So does that mean they really didn’t happen? :P
The housing numbers were released at 8:30 AM est and within a half hour Lehman's analyst was telling the trading desk about the New York effect. So: old news.
If there is bad news to report, you can count on Lehman Brothers to be there first. Is it after they have hedged their positions? who knows.
If there is no bad news to report, you can probably count on LB to make some up.
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