It appears some investors are gearing up for a nice rally in the housing market. Earlier this week, a number of major companies with exposure to housing spiked on news that "housing is firing on all cylinders." This being supported by strong new home sales numbers from the Commerce Department, which showed January new home sales had jumped 15.6% year over year for the month.
A few of the key housing and home improvement companies seeing their shares jump include D.R. Horton (NYSE: DHI), PulteGroup (NYSE: PHM), Lumber Liquidators (NYSE:LL), The Home Depot (NYSE: HD) and Lowe's (NYSE: LOW):
Low mortgage rates and lower housing inventory have helped spur this rise, and in turn has lifted consumer confidence levels. Helping further push up notable home improvement retailer Home Depot was its recent quarterly results, where the company posted fourth quarter EPS results that came in at $0.67, up 34% from the same quarter last year. This earnings beat came on the back of 14% sales increase and 7% comp sales increase in the U.S.