The US made another step towards recession with today's data not only showing that property prices have fallen over 15.3 percent in the last year but that business confidence has fallen to a new 16 year low.
US House Prices fell an average of 1.4 percent in April but was better than expected as some US banks were forecasting falls of more than 17 percent. In cities such as Las Vegas and Miami the falls were even greater and showed a fall of more than 27 percent since
April 2007. Part of the problem though is the the US Mortgages have almost dried up since the credit crisis.
David Blitzer, chairman of the index committee at
Standard and Poors, said: "There might be some regional pockets of improvement, but on an annual basis the overall numbers continue to decline."
The grim outlook was exacerbated by worse-than-expected consumer confidence data which showed that consumer sentiment fell to its lowest level in more than 16 years this month. The Conference Board's confidence index fell to 50.4, the lowest level since
February 1992, and down from 58.1 in May.
The US Dollar slid on the numbers and the
Pound to US Dollar was last at 1.9690
Full story at
The Telegraph