The S&P/Case-Shiller Home Price Indices showed a 2 percent decline in home prices in the third quarter of 2010, a disappointing (though not entirely surprising) follow-up to the 4.7 percent increase in prices reported in quarter two. The report (found here) also states that house prices are currently 1.7 percent lower than they were last year. Like many declines recently noted in the housing market, this could be the result of missing tax incentives motivating buyers.
Consumer confidence continued to improve in November, according to the Conference Board’s Consumer Confidence Index®. According to the report (found here), consumers surveyed were more optimistic about both the short-term outlook and future job prospects.
While Black Friday sale increases in 2010 might have been modest, CNN reports that Cyber Monday sales increased a total of 19.4 percent year-over-year.
Unfortunately, investor confidence was not improved today and the Dow Jones Industrial Average fell 46.47 points to 11,006.02. The Nasdaq dropped 26.99 points to 2,498.23 and the S&P 500 fell 7.21 points to 1,180.55.
Asian and European markets were all down on Tuesday with Japan’s Nikkei falling 1.87 percent.
Stocks in the news: Comcast Corp (NASDAQ: CMCSK), Netflix Inc (NASDAQ: NFLX), Google Inc. (NASDAQ: GOOG).
