Good afternoon and welcome to Markets Desk.
April existing home sales came in soft, and the numbers tell the story clearly. Mortgage rates surged earlier in the spring, and buyers pulled back hard. Uncertainty tied to geopolitical tensions compounded the hesitation, leaving the housing market essentially flat and signaling that affordability remains the central pressure point for consumers right now.
Shifting to energy, the AI buildout is quietly rewriting the power grid calculus. Natural gas is staging a meaningful comeback as data center operators discover that renewables simply cannot scale fast enough to meet their immediate load demands. That is a significant tailwind for gas producers and infrastructure names, and it raises real questions about decarbonization timelines across the sector.
And speaking of energy producers, EOG Resources deserves a closer look. The company runs a deliberately tight operation, concentrating production across just a handful of basins rather than spreading capital thin. First quarter results in two thousand twenty six showed solid margins and a dividend profile that income-focused investors should find genuinely compelling in this rate environment.
That's the tape. Markets Desk, signing off the floor.
