"Although the rebound in sales is consistent with the housing slowdown bottoming out, it seems too early to rejoice," said Dimitry Fleming, an economist with ING Financial Markets.
This slowdown may turn out to be nasty and brutish; but my guess is that it will also turn out to be short.
This slowdown, it turns out, is different.
The ILO, a UN agency focused on labour standards and social protection, said the effects of last year's economic slowdown would play out in higher unemployment in 2016, particularly in Asia, Africa, Latin America and the Middle East.
In sum then, the Spanish economy was about to suffer, not a mild slowdown somehow smoothed out by demand policies, but a long and protracted period of adjustment punctuated by periods of severe financial distress.
Don't bet on a crash, but here's a safe way to play a contrarian hunch on a housing slowdown: move out of home builders or mortgage companies and into apartment-owner stocks, like Avalon Bay, Archstone-Smith Trust and Essex Property Trust.
And this slowdown still could turn out to be a recession.
In 2006, companies like Toll Brothers were predicting they could easily ride out any slowdown.
Separate data for September, however, appeared to show that the slowdown has been bottoming out, and that an improvement may now be on the way.
With high-end customers in China, Russia and other oil-exporting countries feeling squeezed by the global slowdown, that may turn out to be a costly mistake.
