The U.S. Census Bureau reported new home sales decreased in July to 12.6% below the revised number in June. The new home sales in June were revised to down to 585,000 from 590,000. July’s seasonally adjusted rate is 511,000 units. Sales decreased in the West (-13.3%), South (-12.1%), and Midwest (-20.6%) while the Northeast increased (13.3%). The regional year-over-year figures show a decline across all the regions West (-50.3%), South (-20.8%), the Northeast (-37.0%), and Midwest (-22.9%). The median new house price is 10.7% higher than last year at $439,400, the average sale price was $546,800. There were 464,000 new homes for sale at the end of July, up from 450,000 units in June. Houses under construction made up roughly 39.3% of the July new home sales, with homes not started accounting for 32.3%, and completed homes accounting for about 28.4%.

The U.S Census Bureau reported that new orders for durable goods decreased by less than $0.1 billion to $273.5B in July, virtually unchanged from June. This slight decrease follows four consecutive monthly increases including a 2.2% increase in June. Total durable-goods orders are up 10.8% year over year. Excluding transportation, “core” durable-goods orders increased by 0.3% in July. Bookings for motor vehicles increased slightly by 0.2% after a 1.7% increase the previous month. Excluding defense, new orders increased by 1.2%. Transportation equipment decreased (-0.7%) in July and follows two consecutive monthly increases. Orders for non-defense capital goods excluding aircraft, a proxy for business spending plans, increased 0.4% in July. Orders for non-defense capital goods excluding aircraft are up 9.7% year over year. Shipments of core capital goods rose 0.2% in July after increasing 0.4% the previous month.

The US Energy Information Administration reported that US commercial crude oil inventories increased by 3.3M barrels to 421.7M barrels (6% below the five-year average) for the week ending August 19th. Crude oil refinery inputs averaged 16.3M barrels per day, a decrease of 168K barrels per day as compared to the previous week’s average. Gasoline inventories decreased slightly (7% below the five-year average), and distillate inventories decreased by 0.7M barrels (24% below the five-year average). Refineries operated at 93.8% of their operable capacity, as gasoline production decreased to an average of 9.4M barrels per day. Crude oil imports came in at 6.2M barrels per day, an increase of 40K barrels per day as compared to the previous week. Crude oil imports averaged about 6.5M barrels per day over the last four weeks, 1.9% more than the same period last year. Total commercial petroleum inventories increased by 1.4M barrels last week.