Summary
- The U.S. housing market continues to decelerate.
- The Bank of Japan maintained their current interest rate policy at their latest meeting.
- The markets are continuing to consolidate after hitting resistance at the 200-day EMA.
Housing market update: yesterday, the National Association of Realtors released the latest existing home sales report, which showed a 6.4% M/M decline. This capped-off a year of overall declines for this section of the housing market: 
(from Calculated Risk)
New home sales also declined in 2018. Higher interest rates were the primary reason for housing market softness: in 2018, 15-year mortgages rose over 100 basis points while 30-year mortgages advanced slightly more than 90 BPs. The Fed's interest rate increases over the last few years mean it's more than likely that we've seen peak housing sales for this cycle.
Krugman on Brexit (emphasis added):
The long-run economics of Brexit still look mostly the same way they did when I and others began analyzing the prospect back in 2016. Exit from Europe’s customs union would substantially raise transaction costs on roughly half of Britain’s trade. This would impose a cost on overall British real income that most estimates put at a low single-digit percentage of G.D.P. — say, 2 to 4 percent.
This wouldn’t be the economic deliverance some Brexiteers envisioned, but maybe the more important point here is that the effects of Brexit after a few years have passed don’t look catastrophic. How confident can we be that it wouldn’t be too bad? Quite confident, because other countries have managed decently without customs unions despite close economic ties to a much larger neighbor.
Put it this way: A post-Brexit U.K. would be to the E.U. pretty much as Canada was to the U.S. before the U.S.-Canada Free Trade Agreement (which came a few years before NAFTA.) In fact, even the share of cross-border trade in G.D.P. would be similar. And Canada wasn’t a howling wasteland.
The Bank of Japan maintained their current policy at their latest meeting. They will continue with "Yield Curve Control" in which the BOJ will buy 10-year bonds to keep interest rates around 0%. Despite the bank's very aggressive measures, the Japanese economy is somewhat weaker. GDP has contracted in two of the last three quarters. Inflation -- which the central bank has been trying to raise to 2% for the last 7-8 years -- remains stubbornly low, fluctuating between .3% and 1.5% since April 2018. In spite of remarkably low unemployment (which has been reported between 2.2% and 2.5% since 1/18), wage growth is still soft.
Let's take a look at today's performance chart:
With the exception of the DIA, the indexes were mostly unchanged today. The daily chart places this into context:
Since the end of December, prices have rallied about 14%. They hit resistance at the 200-day EMA on Friday and have since moved modestly lower. They are sitting at the 50% Fib level, consolidating gains. This is a very healthy development; it indicates that some traders are taking profits but there is strong enough demand to keep prices from collapsing.
Let's take a look at the shorter-duration charts because they confirm the consolidation we're seeing:
Prices are forming a downward sloping wedge pattern on the 5-minute chart ...
... which is more evident on the 2-week chart ...
... and clearer still on the 30-day chart.
Finally, there's some good news on today's 1-minute chart:
Prices gapped higher at the open but then moved lower until lunch. In the afternoon, the market caught a bid, with prices moving higher in two waves with a modest selloff between the advances. The point is there was strong enough demand to stave off the selloff and advance prices higher through the afternoon.
Right now, it definitely feels like the market is consolidating gains. And -- the best part -- is selloffs are now seen as buying opportunities.
Disclosure: I/we have no positions in any stocks mentioned, and no plans to initiate any positions within the next 72 hours. I wrote this article myself, and it expresses my own opinions. I am not receiving compensation for it (other than from Seeking Alpha). I have no business relationship with any company whose stock is mentioned in this article.