Why do homebuilding stocks always go up on lousy housing data?

I've noticed this the last 3 or 4 numbers that have been terrible... the stocks initially sell off on the number and then go up from there and finish well in the green. Even today it was a horrible number and stocks like LEN and KBH sell off then move up and are now green. Why dont these bad numbers lead to bad price action in the stocks?

 

Maybe the people who own the shares expected an even worse number. What matters for stock prices is not "news" but "news - expectations". How many times has a company reported earnings better than its own forecast only to see its stock price collapse?

 

profit taking and most were stopped out

 

The experts are now saying that housing is going to double dip. However the stocks, which are forward looking, are showing anything but a double dip. Does this mean that there wont be a housing double dip?

 

By the way Pisani said on CNBC today that homebuilding stocks are up today in spite of the data because traders say they dont believe the data is correct...

 

QE2/3/4...../ the ben bernank...reminds me of one of the naked gun movies...I think in the beginning...there's huge explosions going off...and frank (leslie nielson). Says..."nothing to see here, keep moving".

Markets fine. Sub prime is contained, plunge protection has unlimited buying power levered 40 to 1 through their prime broker.

 

Reminds me of when I was a total beginning trader and learned how to set up my direct access platform with scanners and streaming news. I'd watch the stocks that reported earnings and see if I could find some relationship between the reaction in after-hours trading and what price did during RTH.

Whenever GM would report earnings it seems their stock would go up. I said to my husband, "GM lost another gazillion dollars last quarter and their stock is going up! They're not making any money! Why are people even buying their stock???"

And he said, "The loss was less than expected."

I never got it and still don't

 

sell the rumour, buy the news.

it happens every time.

 

so the existing home sales number which fell by nearly 17%, an all time low, while economists expected an actual increase... is a much lesser drop than was expected? this is why homebuilders are hovering near 2 year highs?

 

It's pretty simple - if you expect something terrible, you set the price lower than if you expect something merely bad. So, if you were expecting something terrible, and it turns out to be only bad, the rational price is higher than if it turned out terrible. Hence price will rise from 'terrible' levels to merely 'bad' levels.