We have stock market news this week. From housing to consumer spending to jobless claims — even some earnings reports, such as Lululemon ((LULU Quick QuoteLULU - Free Report) and Dollar Tree ((DLTR Quick QuoteDLTR - Free Report) — we have a decent spread to feed the knowledge which leads to trading trajectories. But this data all comes with one big caveat: April 2nd tariffs are coming a week from Wednesday. It could make all our current data obsolete quite soon.

Now, for weeks investors have been fretting what big draconian tariff rates — 10%, 20%, 25%, higher? — will do to not only costs of goods here in the U.S. but the global economy as a whole. We saw those fears tamped down significantly yesterday when President Trump suggested he would narrow the scope and depth of these tariffs. But while that helped bargain shoppers buy back into beaten down tech stocks, it doesn’t erase the dilemma completely.

Whatever trepidation remains about this possible tariff-burdened climate — even as pre-market trading has flipped from triple-digits in the negative to positive a half-hour ahead of the opening bell — will not be going away soon. Even if April 2nd comes and goes with an easy-to-swallow tariff policy, counter-tariffs and other means of one-upmanship may seize the moment. Literally no one knows right now.

Case-Shiller Home Prices Tepid, but Higher

The latest survey on Case-Shiller Home Prices is out this morning, for the month of January. (Case-Shiller data is always this backward-looking, but still considered the gold standard of housing price data.) A headline of +4.1% overall is 10 basis points (bps) ahead of the previous month’s tally, though below estimates. The 10-city survey grew +5.3% versus +5.2%, while the 20-city moved to +4.7% from +4.5%.

The hottest cities for home price growth remain in the big cities east of the Mississippi River: New York City, +7.7%, Chicago, +7.5%, and Boston, +6.6%. The weakest city in this survey comes from one of the past leaders on Case-Shiller — Tampa, -1.5%. It was the only city to record a negative home price rate, as of January.

Non-Manufacturing Data Falls to Covid-Era Lows

Normally, when we talk about the Philly Fed survey, we tend to focus on the manufacturing side. This came out last week, slightly better than expected: 12.5 versus the 10.0 estimate. This morning, we see non-manufacturing Philly Fed data sinking to -32.5 from -13.1 posted the previous month. This is the worst monthly figure since May 2020 — the depths of the Covid pandemic crisis.

For context, during the Great Reopening, back in 2021, we saw a Philly Fed non-manufacturing print of +80. This was also an outlier — for the past two years, this metric has been sub-zero as often as it has been positive. For March, a decline in new orders, by almost -33%, helped this downward move. We might suspect the shadow of the forthcoming tariffs in play here, as well.

What to Expect Today in the Stock Market

After the market opens this morning, New Home Sales for February are expected to improve to 677K from 657K reported a month ago. This would mark the highest print since December, which had surged over +730K for only the second time over the past year.

Existing Home Sales came out last week, and they surged ahead: 4.26 million outpaced expectations of 3.95 million and the previous month’s 4.08 million. The motivations in selling new homes versus existing homes do not correlate exactly, but if we see a nice jump over estimates in today’s New Home Sales numbers, it could be a good sign for the housing market as a whole.