Pending home sales stagnate

U.S. pending home sales stagnated in April as high mortgage rates paired with limited inventory continued to curb buyer demand.

The National Association of Realtors’ index of contract signings to purchase previously owned homes held at 78.9 last month, according to data released Thursday.

The median estimate in a Bloomberg survey of economists called for a 1% advance.

“Not all buying interests are being completed due to limited inventory,” Lawrence Yun, NAR chief economist, said in a statement.

“Affordability challenges certainly remain and continue to hold back contract signings, but a sizeable increase in housing inventory will be critical to get more Americans moving.”

Faltering sales in the Northeast offset small increases in the rest of the country.

From a year earlier, U.S. home purchases were down nearly 23% on an unadjusted basis.

Mortgage rates are on the rise again.

Last week, the contract rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage climbed to a two-month high of 6.69%.

AI compels markets higher

U.S. stocks rose Thursday as a rally in companies linked to the frenzy in artificial intelligence outweighed broader market concerns including a U.S. debt default.

The S&P 500 gained 0.9% while the tech-heavy Nasdaq 100 added 2.5% after a bullish sales forecast from Nvidia ignited gains in the technology sector.

Shares of Nvidia soared 24% after the company’s forecast related to AI surprised even the most optimistic analysts on Wall Street, propelling the company to the cusp of a $1 trillion market value.

It’s another sign that investors are willing to pile into promising tech stocks, despite the growing worries about China’s economy and a potentially catastrophic U.S. debt default.

Midwest wheat outlook improves

Lush fields in Illinois are proving to be a rare bright spot for the U.S. wheat crop after a severe drought forced growers in top producer Kansas to abandon fields at the fastest rate in more than a century.

Abundant rainfall has pushed Illinois yields to their highest , according to a crop tour this week hosted by the Illinois Wheat Association.

That’s in stark contrast to Kansas, where plants are so withered that some fields won’t even produce straw for hay, much less wheat that will be turned into flour to make bread.

Farmers in both states boosted planting after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine disrupted global grain shipments and sent wheat futures to a record.

From wire reports

While Kansas’s smaller-than-expected crop is keeping prices there high, bigger crops in the Ohio River Valley will provide needed supplies for millers and even livestock producers short of corn for feed.

“The tour showed that we will have one of the best wheat crops we ever produced in the state,” said Mark Krausz, president of the Illinois Wheat Association, who farms about 1,800 acres just east of St. Louis. “And we have lots of acres.”

Farmers in Midwestern states such as Illinois typically plant corn or soy.

But they’ve been increasing wheat production, planting a combined 1 million acres more in the 2022-23 season than in the previous year.