A small silver lining perhaps from the housing sector? According to a report released today by the National Association of Realtors, sales of existing single-family homes, condominiums and townhouses were up 0.4% in November, to an annualized, seasonally adjusted rate of 5 million units. This is the first rise in nine months. While positive, observers point to the fact that sales are still down 20% from November 2006, and that despite the modest uptick, the pace of sales was the second-lowest on record since 1999.

In regard to home prices across the US, today’s data release indicates that median house prices continued to slip. In November, the median price of a home sold was $210,200; this is 3.3% below the median price achieved a year prior. November also saw the fifth largest annual decline that has been recorded.

In a performance review for the year, the benchmark S&P 500 added 3.5%, the Dow ended the season up 6.4%, the NASDAQ Composite was up 9.8%, and the NASDAQ 100 surged 18.7% in 2007. In contrast, the small cap index Russell 2000 was off 2.8% for the year. On the S&P 500, the top three best-performing sectors were Energy (up a stellar 33%), Materials (up 20%), and Tech (adding 16%); the poorest performers were Financials (losing 20%), Consumer Discretionary (off 14%), and Healthcare (which gained 6% for the year).

On that note, we end our live coverage of market activity for 2007 and wish you a happy, healthy, and prosperous 2008!

Key economic data for the week starting December 31, 2007. Numbers shown are consensus estimates (market anticipates this value) and prior value.

Tuesday:
	New Year's Day: All markets closed

Wednesday:
	10:00 ISM Manufacturing Index December: 50.3 / 50.8 14:00 FOMC Minutes

Thursday:
	8:15 ADP Survey December: 50K / 189K 10:00 Factory Orders December: 1.2% / 0.5%

Friday:
	8:30 Non-Farm Payrolls December: 70K / 94K Unemployment Rate: 4.8% / 4.7% Average Hourly Earnings: 0.3% / 0.5% 10:00 ISM Non-Manufacturing Index December: 53.5 / 54.1

© HGH Associated Press

News Archive (from 10/1/2007 until 12/31/2007)