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Homebuilders Rally On More Positive February Data the tickerspy.com Staff Wednesday April 22, 2009, 11:54 am EDT Buzz up! Print Related:Beazer Homes USA Inc., Champion Enterprises Inc., DR Horton Inc. Homebuilders surged on Wednesday following the second straight monthly increase of the Federal Housing Finance Agency home price index.
Related Quotes Symbol Price Change BZH 1.81 +0.15
CHB 0.5678 -0.0622
DHI 12.27 +0.39
LEN 8.25 +0.23
MHO 12.02 +1.12
{"s" : "bzh,chb,dhi,len,mho","k" : "c10,l10,p20,t10","o" : "","j" : ""} The index, which was up 0.7% in February, remains -6.5% below its value at the same time last year, but the sequential increase is giving investors hope for a meaningful rebound in the housing market. In March, the Commerce Department reported a 4.7% sequential increase in February new home sales. These positive data points are generating interest in homebuilders, which had suffered huge declines in demand throughout the housing downturn.
As a whole, the Homebuilder Stocks Index is ahead by 6.8%. It is now outperforming the S&P 500 by 31% over the past month.
M/I Homes (NYSE: MHO - News), Beazer Homes USA (NYSE: BZH - News), and Standard Pacific (NYSE: SPF - News) are leading the index higher today with gains of over 8%.
Some of the industry's major players are also trading higher today. Toll Brothers (NYSE: TOL - News), Lennar Corporation (NYSE: LEN - News), DR Horton (NYSE: DHI - News), and Pulte Homes (NYSE: PHM - News) are all up by more than 4%.
Champion Enterprises (NYSE: CHB - News) is the Index's only loser on the day, down by -3%.
As of this writing, the Homebuilder Stocks Index is one of the the top-10 performing tickerspy Indexes, up by 43% this month.
Investors can follow the Homebuilder Stocks Index and view related performance charts and metrics at tickerspy.com.
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