Home prices in the U.S. continue to decline as the Standard & Poors/Case-Shiller index released today showed that home prices fell new record amounts in the December when compared to a year ago. The S & P’s/Case-Shiller Home Price Index measures sale 
prices of existing single-family homes nationally and tracks 10-city and 20-city composite home price measurements. The December 2008 house prices report showed that the 20-city composite index fell an annual 18.5 percent to mark a new record low while the 10-city composite index also fell a new record low 19.2 percent in December compared to last year.
The metropolitan areas hardest hit continued to be Las Vegas and Phoenix with annual declines of 33.0 percent and 34.0 percent, respectively. On an annual basis, none of the 20 metropolitan areas measured have shown house price increases with Denver being the area with the lowest decline at 4.0 percent. On a monthly basis, Phoenix registered the largest house price decline with a fall of 5.1 percent while Boston registered the best reading for the month with a decline of only 1.3 percent.
David M. Blitzer, Chairman of the Index Committee at S & P, commented in the report, “Most of the nation appears to remain on a downward path, with all of the 20 metro areas reporting annual declines, and eight of those MSA’s now with negative rates exceeding 20%. If one looks in detail at the annual return data, it can be seen that 13 of the 20 MSA’s and the two composites have been reporting consecutive record declines since December 2007. The monthly data follows a similar trend, with all of the metro areas reporting at least four consecutive months of negative returns.”
Also released today out of the US was the Conference Board’s consumer confidence index which saw confidence fall to a new all-time low in February. In a survey of 5,000 households, the confidence index showed that consumer confidence fell over 12 points from 37.4 in January to 25.0 in February to mark its lowest point since the survey started in 1967. The Present Situation index also declined from 29.7 in January to 21.2 in February while the Expectations index fell from 42.5 in January to 27.5 in February. The decline in confidence surpassed market forecasts that were expecting the confidence index to register a 36.0 score for February.
US Dollar falls in Forex Trading.
The U.S. dollar has been falling in the forex market today against most of the major currencies today. The dollar has lost ground to the euro, Swiss franc, Canadian loonie, New Zealand dollar and Australian dollar while showing a gain versus the Japanese Yen and British Pound.
The euro has advanced in trading versus the dollar from today’s 1.2726 opening at 00:00GMT to trading at approximately 1.2839 in the afternoon of the US trading session at 4:37pm EST.
The dollar has declined against the Canadian dollar after opening at 1.2491 earlier today to trading later at 1.2415. The Australian dollar has increased versus the USD with the AUD/USD trading at 0.6499 after opening today at 0.6456.
The New Zealand dollar has also increased versus the US dollar as the NZD/USD trades at 0.5133 after opening the day at the 0.5115 exchange rate. Against the Swiss franc, the USD has been falling today after gaining yesterday as the USD/CHF has declined from its 1.1675 opening to trading at 1.1598.
The British pound has decreased today versus the dollar as the GBP/USD has gone from its 1.4559 opening to trading at 1.4478 in the U.S. session. The dollar has advanced against the Japanese yen as the USD/JPY has climbed from its 94.97 opening to trading at 96.70 later today.
EUR/USD Chart – The Euro has advances today versus the US Dollar in Forex Trading.
