Housing could send stocks higher

Updated: 11 p.m. ET Sunday

For the last few years, it has been housing's lot to bring the stock market back to Earth.

It certainly has the potential to splash reality in investors' faces in the week ahead when reports on existing- and new-home sales come along with the monthly reports on housing starts and building permits.

But if the numbers break right -- with all the indicators showing clear signs that a bottom for housing has set in -- one could reasonably see a continuation of the big rally that pushed the Dow Jones industrials ($INDU) above 13,000 this past week.

The week ahead, in fact, is a busy one for investors. It starts with Apple's (AAPL) 9.a.m. ET conference call on what it may do with more than $100 billion in cash. The betting is its first dividend. In addition to Apple and the housing reports, a batch of important earnings are due that include results from Adobe Systems (ADBE), Oracle (ORCL), Tiffany (TIF), General Mills (GIS), Nike (NKE) and FedEx (FDX).

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And there will be many eyes on two more factors in the coming week: oil prices (and gasoline prices) and interest rates. Crude oil closed Friday at $107.06 a barrel, with retail gasoline at $3.831 a gallon. Crude is up 8.63%, while gasoline is up nearly 17%. Can gasoline prices hurt the economy? They did a year ago and helped set off the Great Recession.

Interest rates started to move up as well, with the 10-year Treasury hitting 2.298%, up from 1.871% at the end of 2011. The question is whether the increase will bother anyone -- yet.

It was a very good week for stocks. The Dow and Standard & Poor's 500 Index ($INX) were up 2.4% for the week, with the Nasdaq Composite Index ($COMPX) up 2.2%. The Dow and S&P 500 are enjoying their best start for a year since 1998; the Nasdaq's start is its best since 1991.

What will Apple do with all that cash?
Apple announced the scheduling of its conference call on Sunday evening. Apple had more than $97 billion in cash and short-and-long marketable securities on its balance sheet at the end of December, up from roughly $59 billion a year ago.

Most media reports were betting on a regular dividend. Bernstein analyst A. M. Sacconaghi told The New York Times that a dividend of 2.5% was a good possibility. It could be financed from domestic profits or even small borrowings and would not threaten the 66% of the cash horde that is held in overseas subsidiaries. To bring it into the United States would trigger repatriation taxes.

Apple has been under pressure to put more of the cash to work or return it to shareholders. CEO Tim Cook said on a conference call in January that executives were studying how to deal with the issue. And, he conceded, the company has more cash than it needs to run the business.

The late Steve Jobs had opposed dividends and stock buybacks.

Will housing stop being a drag on the economy?
Housing has been one of the biggest drags on the economy since the bubble started to burst in 2006. Housing markets have been struggling with foreclosures, bloated inventories of new  and existing homes and condominiums for sale and weak household formation rates.

And there have been suggestions from a number of homebuilding companies that buyers are out looking for homes this year in greater numbers than in the past few years. Apartment construction has been stronger as many would-be buyers have opted not to own because they want the flexibility.

Inventories have been shrinking in places like Phoenix and Sarasota as investors large and small have swooped in to pick up foreclosed properties that they can rent or fix up and try to resell.

And that's as it should be. Apartment construction gains usually precede gains in new-home building by nine months to two years before single-family construction starts to gain. And prices often continue to fall even as the bottom forms.

So, these are the reports to watch on housing:

Monday: The National Association of Home Builders Market Index. This is a measure of builder confidence. It rose to 29 in February from 25 in January. It's still a depressed level; a reading of 50 or more is a clear signal of overall builder confidence.

Tuesday: Housing starts and building permits for February, due from the Commerce Department. Permits, which turn into homes started, are expected to come in at about 700,000, with the abnormally warm winter providing an extra jolt. A number above 700,000 will be a signal that more than weather is pushing permits.

Wednesday: Existing-home sales, due from the National Association of Realtors. The IHS Global Insight expects an annualized sales rate of 4.6 million units, with gains of single-family home sales offsetting declines in condominium sales. Also, see if home-purchase applications rise in the weekly mortgage application report from the Mortgage Bankers Association.

Thursday: The Federal Housing Finance Agency's monthly home-price index report. This should show a decline, but the rate of decline is what's important. Smaller is better.

Friday: New-home sales, due from the Commerce Department. This report should show sales at an annualized 325,000 units. This is only just above disastrous. But it also means that inventories are getting utilized.

Also due next week are the weekly report on jobless claims and The Conference Board's report on leading economic indicators in February.

There will also be a number of economic reports from Europe that could move U.S. markets, including reports on consumer confidence and factory orders in Europe, due Thursday. Reports on produce and consumer price inflation in Germany are due Friday.
 

Markets for the week
			3/16/2012			3/9/2012			% chg.			YTD chg.
Dow Industrials			13,232.62			12,922.02			2.40%			8.31%
S&P 500			1,404.17			1,370.87			2.43%			11.65%
Nasdaq			3,055.26			2,988.34			2.24%			17.28%
Russell 2000			830.18			817.00			1.61%			12.05%
Crude oil			$107.06			$107.40			-0.32%			8.33%
(per barrel)
U.S. Dollar Index			80.08			80.08			0.00%			-0.55%
10-yr. Treasury			2.30%			2.04%			12.76%			22.82%
Gold			$1,655.80			1,711.50			-3.25%			5.68%

A surprisingly important week for earnings
There aren't a lot of earnings reports this week, but there are some important ones. And they may shed some light on corporate activity going forward.

The fourth-quarter earnings season has just about ended, and profits haven't been as good as expected. Thomson Reuters estimates S&P 500 companies will report $231.9 billion in profits for the quarter, down from an estimated $245.7 billion at the start of the quarter.

Apple's (AAPL) profits were so big that an overall growth rate of 9.4% for the quarter shrinks to 6.3% if Apple's profits are taken out.

Here are the key reports of the week:

Monday: Adobe Systems (ADBE). The company expects 54 to 59 cents a share in earnings after one-time items are taken out. It has boosted guidance for fiscal 2012.

Tuesday: Tiffany (TIF) and Oracle (ORCL). Tiffany cut its guidance for fiscal-fourth-quarte​r earnings because of weakness in Europe and elsewhere. What it says about Europe will be very important. Oracle is struggling with intensifying competition from SAP (SAP) and others after the loss of Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) as a key partner and problems with sales at its hardware business, acquired when it bought Sun Microsystems. The stock, however, is up nearly 16% this year.

Wednesday: General Mills (GIS) and Discover Financial Services (DFS). Worried about inflationary pressures other than oil? General Mills will tell you if you should be.

Thursday: FedEx (FDX), Accenture (ACN), Lululemon Athletica (LULU) and Nike (NKE). FedEx is widely watched as a leading economic indicator. Accenture is a bet on corporate tech spending. Lululemon is a hot fitness apparel retailer. And Nike is expected to have a great year because of the Summer Olympics in London and the buildup to the World Cup in soccer in 2014. With Nike, pay less attention to reported earnings. Focus on its future orders, which come near the end of its earnings report.

Friday: Darden (DRI) and KB Home (KBH). For the parent of the Olive Garden, Red Lobster and other chains, a key question is whether gas prices are affecting business. KB Home shares are up 90% this year, part of a big Wall Street bet on housing. If the housing data are bad and KB Homes results miss estimates (a loss of 23 cents a share), the stock could crash.