Pending home sales, a forward-looking indicator based on signed
contracts, rose 2.4% in June after an 8.2% increase in May. On a
year-over-year basis, pending sales are up 19.8%.

The Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller 20-city housing price index —
on a non-seasonally adjusted basis — rose 1% in May after a 0.6%
increase in April.

The consumer confidence index rose to 59.5 in July from a downwardly
revised 57.6 in June. The index was benchmarked at 100 in 1985, a year
chosen because it was neither a peak nor a trough in consumer
confidence.

New home sales fell 1% in June to a seasonally adjusted annual rate
of 312,000 units from a downwardly revised rate of 315,000 units in May.

The Mortgage Bankers Association said its seasonally adjusted
composite index of mortgage applications for the week ending July 22
fell 5%. Refinancing applications decreased 5.5%. Purchase volume fell
3.8%.

Orders for durable goods — items expected to last three or more years
— fell 2.1% in June after a revised 1.9% increase in May. Excluding
volatile transportation-related goods, orders posted a monthly increase
of 0.1%.

The Commerce Department announced that gross domestic product — the
total output of goods and services produced in the U.S. — increased at
an annual rate of 1.3% in the second quarter of 2011. This follows a
1.9% pace of growth in the first quarter of 2011.

Initial claims for unemployment benefits fell by 24,000 to 398,000
for the week ending July 23. Continuing claims for the week ending July
16 fell by 17,000 to 3.7 million.