News in end use

In March, 388,000 Canadians received regular Employment Insurance (EI) benefits, which is little changed from February’s totals. The number of Canadians collecting EI benefits fell by 141,000, or 26.7%, year-over-year.

The National Association of Realtors® reported that total existing home sales recorded a 3.4% decline in April from March to a seasonally adjusted rate of 4.28 million homes in April. Year-over-year, sales are down 23.2%.

Freddie Mac has released its Primary Mortgage Market Survey® for the week ending May 18th. The 30-year fixed-rate mortgage averaged 6.39%, up from last week when it averaged 6.35%. A year ago, the 30-year rate averaged 5.25%.

The Conference Board’s Leading Economic Index® (LEI) declined 0.6% in April to a reading of 107.5 (2016=100) after posting declines of 1.2% in March and 0.5% in February. The LEI has dropped 4.4% over the last six months.

The advance figure for seasonally adjusted initial unemployment claims was 242,000 during the week ending Saturday, May 13th. This is a decrease of 22,000 from the previous week’s unrevised level of 264,000.

Privately‐owned housing starts in April were at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,401,000; this is 2.2% above the revised March. Single-family housing starts in April were at a rate of 846,000; this is 1.6% above the revised March figure of 833,000.

Statistics Canada reported that investment in Canadian building construction declined 1.3% to $20.3 billion (CAD) in March. On a constant dollar basis (2012=100), investment in building construction fell 1.8% to $11.5 billion.

The Mortgage Bankers Association’s Market Composite Index—a measure of mortgage loan application volume—declined 5.7% on a seasonally adjusted basis from one week earlier. On an unadjusted basis, the Index decreased 6.0%.

The National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index reported that builder sentiment in the market for newly built single-family homes increased 5 points in May to a reading of 50. This marks the fifth consecutive month of gains.

The total number of loans now in forbearance decreased 4 basis points from 0.55% of servicers’ portfolio volume in March to 0.51% as of April 30th. The MBA estimates that 255,000 homeowners remain in forbearance plans.