Shares of housing market companies enjoyed a broad rally Friday, after data showing that new home sales surprisingly rose, and sharply, in the face of other signs showing a slowdown in the housing sector. The SPDR S&P Homebuilders ETF rallied 2.9% in morning trading, with all 35 components trading higher. Among the more active home builders, shares of Lennar Corp. hiked up 2.1%, D.R. Horton Inc. rose 1.7% and PulteGroup Inc. climbed 2.1%. Also in the homebuilders ETF, Home Depot Inc.’s stock gained 1.7% and Builders FirstSource Inc. shares surged 6.3%. In the real estate services space, shares of Redfin Corp. jumped 2.4% and Anywhere Real Estate Inc. climbed 2.0%. The U.S. Commerce Department said Friday that new home sales rose 10.7% to a seasonally adjusted rate of 696,000 in May from a revised 629,000 in April, while expectations were for a decline to 587,000 from an initial April estimate of 591,000. That followed data last week that showed existing home sales falling for the fourth-straight month, and housing starts that dropped to a two-year low.
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