U.S. Residential Real-Estate Prices Still Soft, Consumer Confidence Up

The S&P Case-Shiller Index data have been released, and the figures show that housing prices went nowhere during February. Small declines in the raw figures ended up as small gains when seasonally adjusted.

S&P's David Blitzer called the report "mixed," noting, "The rebound in housing prices seen last fall is fading."

The release of this item seems to have put pressure on gold and wind on the greenback's back. Spot gold started sinking right around the time the data were released, and the U.S. Dollar Index rallied. Both trends were amplified somewhat right after 9:05 AM.


Later, the March reading for the Consumer Confidence Index was released. It rebounded from February's revised 46.4 to 52.5. The expected figure was for 51.0. This reading seems to have helped the U.S. dollar; it did not help gold.