Some cracks may finally be starting to show in the foundations of what has been a very strong housing market.

Home Depot reported quarterly sales that missed forecasts Tuesday and the CEO specifically cited “a slow start to the spring selling season.”

Shares of Home Depot (HD) fell about 2% in early trading on the news. Rival Lowe’s (LOW), which will report its first quarter earnings on May 23, slipped 1% as well.

Home Depot’s same-store sales, which measure how well locations open at least a year are doing, rose 4.2% in the quarter. But Wall Street was expecting a 5.4% jump. This was the first time Home Depot failed to top analysts’ estimates in nearly two years.

Rising mortgage rates could be a problem for the company. The yield on the 10-year US Treasury bond, a key benchmark for mortgage rates, is back above 3% and is at its highest level since July 2011.

If mortgage rates continue to climb, that could make it more difficult for people to buy a house — which would not be great news for Home Depot.

And Wall Street is starting to worry that the housing boom could be coming to an end too. Shares of big builders Lennar (LEN), Toll Brothers (TOL), KB Home (KBH) and D.R. Horton (DHI) all dipped Tuesday and they are each down between 10% and 20% so far this year.

Related: Here’s what’s killing Sears

The weather was also a factor in Home Depot’s disappointing quarter.

While many retailers often trot out bad weather as an excuse for poor sales, it’s a legitimate concern for a company that sells building products to people constructing homes outside.

The word “weather” was mentioned 14 times during Home Depot’s conference call with analysts.

Home Depot cited “extreme winter weather” as something that hurt gardening supply sales. Sales in the northern part of the US and Canada were particularly weak.

The sluggish sales growth is particularly surprising since Home Depot has been one of the better-performing retailers for some time now.

Home Depot has outperformed the Dow and the SPDR S&P Retail ETF (XRT), by a wide margin for the past five years. Home Depot is a Dow component.

The company has benefited from the fact that many prospective home sellers have been looking to make improvements on their homes in order to help boost the sale price. Strong demand for new homes has helped fuel Home Depot sales too.

Related: Bed Bath & Beyond is in serious trouble

Home Depot also continues to be part of a small group of so-called “Amazon-proof” retailers.

Home Depot shoppers, particularly professional builders, are more likely to go to a store for plywood, lumber, concrete and other critical construction materials so they can actually see and touch them as opposed to simply buying them online from Amazon (AMZN).

And when customers are buying online, many prefer to go to the store to pick up the products. Home Depot’s online sales rose 20% in the quarter.

So Home Depot’s biggest challenge going forward isn’t likely to be Amazon. It’s rising mortgage rates.

CNNMoney (New York) First published May 15, 2018: 11:01 AM ET

Most people make money from their day jobs. British royals are not most people.

Queen Elizabeth II and the British royal family have multiple sources of income, but they’re still not as rich as you might expect.

Media reports have estimated the Queen’s personal fortune is worth up to £360 million ($470 million). That’s a nice chunk of change, but over 320 Brits are richer, according to the Sunday Times.

The Queen and the heir to her throne, Prince Charles, receive most of their income from the government and their private estates. Millions trickle down to the rest of the family, including Prince William and his wife Catherine, the Duchess of Cambridge. Prince Harry, who will wed American actress Meghan Markle on May 19, also receives royal funds.

Here’s how the royal finances work:

The Queen’s three main sources of income are the Sovereign Grant, the Duchy of Lancaster estate and her personal property and investments.

The Sovereign Grant — an annual lump sum from the government — is essentially an expense account, covering the costs of travel, security, staff and the upkeep of royal palaces.

The Queen received £42.8 million ($58 million) free of tax from the Sovereign Grant in the 2016-2017 fiscal year. The payment was projected to balloon by 78% to £76.1 million ($103 million) in the latest fiscal year to help finance an extensive renovation of Buckingham Palace.

The Sovereign Grant is generated from the Crown Estate, a collection of UK properties and farms that generate hundreds of millions of pounds each year. The vast majority of earnings from the Crown Estate go into government coffers, but a portion of the profits — between 15% to 25% — are given to the Queen in the form of the Sovereign Grant.

Related: How much does a royal wedding cost?

Another important source of income for the monarch is the Duchy of Lancaster, a private estate of commercial, agricultural and residential properties that dates back to 1265. It produced £19.2 million ($26 million) in income for the Queen during the most recent fiscal year. The Queen uses this money to pay for official and private expenses, including some costs incurred by other members of the royal family who undertake official engagements on her behalf.

Related: Everything you need to know about the royal wedding

The Queen also has her own personal assets, including Balmoral Castle in Scotland, and the Sandringham Estate in the east of England. Both were inherited from her father and are beloved family retreats.

But her wealth extends far beyond real estate. The Queen also owns a valuable stamp collection, numerous works of art and a stock portfolio.

Other assets closely associated with the Queen, including the Crown Jewels and many works of fine art, are actually owned by the Royal Collection Trust, a charity.

The Queen’ husband — Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh — also receives an annual payment worth £359,000 ($488,000) to finance his official duties. He retired last year after more than six decades of public service.

Related: Kate and William can afford 3 kids. Many Brits cannot

Prince Charles and his wife Camilla, known formally as The Prince of Wales and The Duchess of Cornwall, rely on a a mix of public and private money.

Over 90% of their income comes from a private estate, the Duchy of Cornwall, which was established in 1337 to provide an income to the heir to the throne. The Duchy of Cornwall owns and operates land in rural and urban areas, a collection of islands and rental cottages in places like Wales and Cornwall.

In the most recent financial year, the couple made £20.7 million ($28 million) from the estate.

The couple also received £1.3 million ($1.8 million) from the Queen’s Sovereign Grant and another £461,000 ($627,000) from various UK government departments.

The Sovereign Grant is used to pay the couple’s official travel and property expenses. The government cash goes toward some official overseas trips and the salaries of members of the military who protect the family.

Roughly half of their annual income is spent on official duties and travel, while a quarter goes to the tax man. The remaining £6.6 million ($8.9 million) goes to Charles’ children, “non-official” purchases and a royal savings account.

When Markle officially joins the clan, Prince Charles has the discretion to give the couple more money.

Prince William, Kate and Prince Harry are also reimbursed for costs when they perform official duties on behalf of the Queen.

Prince William and Prince Harry have private, inherited wealth from their mother, Princess Diana.

There is limited public information about how the rest of the royal family make their money. The Queen has three other children aside from Prince Charles, and they too have children, spouses and grandchildren.

The Queen’s two youngest children, Andrew, the Duke of York, and Edward, the Earl of Wessex, work full-time to support the monarchy, which involves appearing at public engagements on behalf of their mother.

The Queen pays her children for these duties through her income from the Sovereign Grant and Duchy of Lancaster.

The next generation of royals is expected to forge their own careers and required to be more independent. For example, Andrew’s daughters — Princess Beatrice and Princess Eugenie — have full time jobs in the business and art worlds, respectively. But they also receive some financial support from their father.

CNNMoney (London) First published May 9, 2018: 7:22 AM ET

When you think of Bentley, you probably think of lounging in a big leather back seat, sipping champagne and maybe licking a spot of Grey Poupon off your pinky finger.

Nope. That’s Rolls-Royce. But your confusion is understandable. For about 70 years Rolls-Royce owned Bentley and, during that time, there really wasn’t an awful lot of difference the two. Bentleys were Rolls-Royces but a little different.

Since then, though, the two manufacturers have gone their own ways. Rolls-Royce is now owned by BMW, and is all about being the ultimate opulence machine.

Meanwhile Bentley, which is now owned by Volkswagen, is returning its long-lost roots as a race car company. Comfort and luxury, yes, but with a heavy dollop of speed.

In May 2015, a Bentley GT set a speed record with actor Idris Elba at the wheel. Then, in September of that same year, a Bentley Bentayga became the world’s fastest production SUV, hitting 187 miles an hour on a test track.

Bentley first achieved fame in the 1920s, on the race track. The Bentley Boys, a crew of British race drivers, helped make the brand famous when they racked up piles of race wins in the 1920s. Bentley’s race cars were big and not particularly light, but they were fast enough to beat the likes of Bugatti on the track. Those victories translated into sales.

David Gooding, head of the classic car auction company Gooding & Co., took me out for a ride in one of Bentley’s top performance models of that time, a 1926 6-1/2 Liter LeMans Sport.

The day after we drove it, it would sell for $700,000. It would have gone for more, Gooding said, had the body been original. But like the original, this car’s body was made largely from Rexine, a sort of faux leather, stretched over a wood framework. Its massive 6-cylinder engine could produce about 180-horsepower. You can get as much power from a 4-cylinder Toyota Camry today, but that was eye-popping back then.

Just sitting in the car reminded me of the courage race drivers had then. Sitting high on its tall, skinny tires, it had no stability control, anti-lock brakes or airbags, of course, but it also lacked a roll cage and seatbelts.

The engine roared and the transmission gears whirred as we rounded curves along the California coastline. As we headed into a tight turn, Gooding told me this car wasn’t really designed for cornering — still, he didn’t slow much. It was built for flat out speed on the straights. The ride was surprisingly Bentley-like and I could tell the power would have been immense to someone used to ordinary 1920s driving.

This wasn’t his own car, but Gooding has one like just it in his collection. He likes to take his Bentley 6-1/2 Litre out on the interstate, he said. It’s great fun charging down the left lane at 80 or 90 miles an hour and watching drivers glance in their rearview mirrors then move aside for what is, apparently, a freight train coming up on them.

Like turns, stopping is also not this car’s strength, he told me. Panic stops are cause for legitimate panic.

“When you lock up the brakes at 85 miles an hour, it gets, um, exciting,” he said.

I’ve driven plenty of modern Bentleys that are, quieter, faster and way better at cornering and stopping than the LeMans Sport. It was surprising, though, how straight a line could be drawn from that car to Bentley’s modern Continental GT. Granted, Bentley spent over 70 years owned by Rolls-Royce. But, ultimately, the car maker came around to more or less the same place: Producing big, comfortable, fast cars.

CNNMoney (New York) First published October 11, 2017: 9:49 AM ET

Unemployment keeps falling and home prices keep going up. It’s a great recipe for a strong housing market.

Nothing has been able to stop the housing boom — not even higher interest rates.

Luxury home builder Toll Brothers (TOL) said Tuesday that demand for its houses was strong across the country — the company signed a record number of contracts last quarter.

Toll Brothers reported quarterly financial results that easily topped forecasts and raised its outlook for the year, citing a backlog of new homes for the third quarter.

Higher rates do not seem to be an issue for prospective buyers, mainly because the job market remains strong and housing prices are rising.

The company said that the average price of its homes in the most recent quarter was $851,900, compared to $791,400 a year ago. And Toll Brothers expects that prices for the current quarter will range between $840,000 and $870,000.

The only weak spot was California, where demand cooled a bit.

Toll Brothers executive chairman Robert Toll said the company believes the new home market can continue to grow in the coming years — especially as people seek to cash in on the rising value of their current home and trade up.

As the value of people’s homes increases, empty nesters and homeowners looking for bigger houses have more equity to work with, Toll said in the company’s press release. He also expects those two groups and Millennials will fuel demand for new homes in the coming years.

Shares of Toll Brothers surged more than 11% on the solid earnings Tuesday — but the stock is still down 20% for the year.

The results are the latest sign that the recent homebuilder stock slump may have been an overreaction. Investors feared that rate hikes would weaken demand for homes. That hasn’t happened yet.

Rival builder Lennar (LEN) also reported healthy quarterly results in late June.

Retail giant Home Depot (HD) just posted strong numbers last week as well, another sign that people continue to spend on their houses. Home Depot rival Lowe’s (LOW) will report results Wednesday and analysts are expecting a nearly 30% jump in earnings.

CNNMoney (New York) First published August 21, 2018: 10:45 AM ET

The Winter Olympics start this week in Pyeongchang, South Korea. But don’t expect to see hordes of Americans in the bleachers.

High travel costs and a shortage of hotel rooms have put Americans off attending the marquee event. Tensions with North Korea haven’t helped, either.

“Our travel sales to this Olympics have been very light,” said Anbritt Stengele, founder of specialist travel company Sports Traveler.

Pyeongchang — with a population around 44,000 — is not a model tourist destination. It’s a two-hour train journey from the South Korean capital, Seoul.

Stengele had hoped that clients would be able to stay in Seoul and commute to the Olympics. But then she factored in the time required for trains, event lines and security.

“We decided not to recommend this option to our guests,” she said.

Flights bookings from the United States to South Korea in February were up 24% compared to the previous year, according to data from travel intelligence firm ForwardKeys. But that’s a small bump for such a big event.

“You would expect triple-digit growth,” said David Tarsh, a spokesman for ForwardKeys.

So who is going? Residents of China and Japan have run the most searches for flights to South Korea, according to data from the travel app Hopper.

Shanghai, Hong Kong and Tokyo were the cities with the highest search volume for Olympic travel.

Only two U.S. cities made the top 10: Los Angeles (6th) and New York (9th). The average price for round-trip flights from these cities was $800 to $930.

Related: Team USA’s Olympic uniforms are wearable heaters

Weak demand may not be limited to the U.S.

Global flight bookings to South Korea in February were up about 15% compared to last year, according to ForwardKeys. But that’s not as much as you’d expect for a major sporting event.

A long-running feud between China and South Korea over the deployment of a U.S. missile defense system has hurt Chinese tourism in South Korea.

“The real origin market that matters for [South] Korea is China,” said Tarsh. “The market from China has completely collapsed.”

The countries with the biggest surge in interest include Vietnam, the Philippines and Canada.

Bookings from Vietnam have surged more than 550% over the previous year, according to ForwardKeys. A South Korean visa waiver program contributed to this boost, said Tarsh.

The number of bookings from the Philippines have more than doubled and Canadian bookings are up over 40%.

CNNMoney (London) First published February 7, 2018: 4:29 AM ET

The new Ford Mustang Shelby GT500 will have over 700 horsepower, making it be the most powerful street-legal production car the company has ever made.

Ford made the announcement at the Detroit Auto Show, and screened a dimly lit teaser video that gave a glimpse of a few of the car’s parts, including a large rear wing.

The GT500 will exceed even the power output of the Ford GT, Ford’s $450,000 exotic supercar. That car can produce 647 horsepower from a turbocharged V6 engine.

Since the GT500 will have over 700 horsepower, it also has a good chance of out-powering the Dodge Challenger Hellcat muscle car, which has a 707-horsepower supercharged engine. And the GT500 will probably be hundreds of pounds lighter than the Hellcat, which will make it even faster.

The first Shelby GT500 appeared in 1967. That car had half the horsepower of this one. The most recent Shelby GT500, which went out of production in 2015, produced 662 horsepower from a 5.8-liter V8 engine.

Ford (F) has a complicated but fruitful relationship with Las Vegas-based Shelby American company. Shelby Mustangs were originally made by Shelby using Mustangs supplied by Ford as a starting point. Shelby still does does these sort of performance conversions. In fact, there are already Shelby Mustangs, such as the Super Snake, available with over 700 horsepower.

But those Shelby-made cars aren’t considered Ford production cars, so Ford’s “most powerful” claim still stands.

In recent years, Ford has also been making some Mustang models with the Shelby name entirely in its own factories. For instance, the last Shelby GT500 was an all-Ford product, as is the current 526-horsepower Ford Shelby GT350. The new Shelby GT500 will be made by Ford, as well.

Ford offered no details on the new GT500, such as exactly what sort of engine it will have or when it will be fully revealed to the public. It will be available some time in 2019.

CNNMoney (New York) First published January 16, 2018: 12:45 PM ET

There’s a nice little real estate boom underway in Europe.

Europe took 11 of the top 20 spots on a ranking of cities with the largest price increases in the first quarter, according to global property agency Knight Frank. Prices spiked more than 14% over the previous year in Berlin, Rotterdam and Budapest.

EU data back up the findings, showing that home prices increased by an average of 4.7% across the bloc in the first quarter, the highest price growth since late 2007 when the global financial crisis was about to explode.

Demand has been fueled by low interest rates, an improving job market, rising consumer confidence and growing interest from foreign buyers, according to Kate Everett-Allen, a residential property expert at Knight Frank.

At the same time, the number of new homes being built has slumped.

“There’s a massive reduction in what’s coming out of the ground in terms of new dwellings,” said Everett-Allen.

One prime example of the trend is Spain, where only 55,000 new homes were built in 2016. That compares to 735,000 in 2006, before the country’s economy was rocked by a debt crisis.

Everett-Allen said that prices have increased 10% in Madrid, making it one of the strongest growth areas.

“Madrid is a key one,” she said. “The economy has improved significantly. A lot of commercial activity is feeding into the residential side … You’re seeing interest from European buyers and some from Latin America as well.”

Related: Is this the future of home renovation?

Dublin is also bouncing back after a major property bubble burst during the financial crisis. Prices there jumped nearly 12% in the first quarter.

“Prices [in places like Ireland and Spain] are still below their pre-crisis peak,” said Everett-Allen. “They’re rising from quite a low base.”

Europe is also seeing a “small-city renaissance” due to increasing interest from young buyers, said Paul Tostevin, associate director at real estate agency Savills.

“Compared to higher-cost, congested global mega-cities, historic European cities on a smaller footprint offer residents shorter commutes, a lower cost of living and high quality of life,” he said.

There are some outliers. EU data show that prices in Italy and some Nordic nations are slipping. Knight Frank estimates that prices in Turin dropped 7.1% in the first quarter.

London’s famously expensive housing market has also experienced price declines as Brexit and new taxes have scared off buyers.

Related: American prices are rising faster than they have in six years

Changes in monetary policy could constrain future demand.

The European Central Bank has announced plans to end its €2.5 trillion ($2.9 trillion) stimulus program and it could hike interest rates as early as 2019, making mortgages more expensive.

Everett-Allen said buyers may be trying to lock in purchases before rates go up, contributing to the current market strength.

CNNMoney (London) First published July 17, 2018: 7:27 AM ET

Lamborghini is trying out a new slogan. “We are not supercars. We are Lamborghini”

Wait. What?

That statement, on the cover of the company’s new sales brochure, sounds contradictory. If any company is supercars, it would have to be Lamborghini, right? The Italian ultra-luxury automaker pretty much invented the modern supercar, with famous cars like the Lamborghini Miura and Countach in the 1960s and ’70s.

But now they are Super SUVs, too.

Right below that crazy statement on the brochure is a picture of the Lamborghini Urus SUV, a high-riding, four-door vehicle that just went into production on a brand new assembly line at Lamborghini’s Italian headquarters. Lamborghini is billing it as something entirely new, the world’s first “Super SUV.” (The Urus is actually Lamborghini’s second SUV model. There was only a limited run of its first, the LM002, in the late 1980s.)

And the Lamborghini brand may have some more room to grow, said CEO Stefano Domenicali. An SUV is a big stretch for a brand with Lamborghini’s image, but he said there could be other unexpected products in Lamborghini’s future.

Asked if Lamborghini is content to stop with just the SUV, Domenicali hinted that there’s more to come in years ahead, but wouldn’t share any specifics.

Lamborghini is following the path pioneered by its sister brand Porsche. (Both are part of Germany’s Volkswagen Group (VLKAF).) Porsche successfully introduced an SUV in 2002, something that many purists decried as a sort of sacrilege. In the long run, Porsche’s image as a maker of top-flight sports cars suffered no lasting damage, while its balance sheet benefited enormously. Porsche has pointed out that profits from the Cayenne SUV have allowed Porsche to spend more on the development of its sports cars.

Like the Porsche Cayenne, the Lamborghini Urus, according to early reviews, has the performance capabilities to credibly carry the Lamborghini logo. Lamborghini expects the new model to double the brand’s sales. In Lamborghini’s case, that means it will sell a total of over 7,000 vehicles a year. It also means bringing in many new customers who would never have considered owning a Lamborghini before.

Porsche followed the Cayenne with the Panamera four-door car and, later, the smaller Macan SUV.

A four-door Lamborghini car has been considered in the past, such when the company unveiled the Estoque in 2008. That idea never went anywhere at the time but, perhaps, it could find its place in the future.

New body styles won’t be the only change. There will be new power sources to drive the company’s famous sports cars. Late last year, Lamborghini showed off an electric sports car concept it created with the help of MIT scientists.

CNNMoney (Detroit) First published January 23, 2018: 9:52 AM ET

One of the most amazing things about the Bugatti Chiron, besides its $3 million price and top speed of 261 miles per hour, is how nicely it drives on streets where it can’t go nearly as fast.

But Bugatti just unveiled a new version at the Geneva Motor Show that’s engineered to do even better on the track. The Bugatti Chiron Sport has just as much power as the standard car — 1,500 horsepower via a 16-cylinder engine and four turbochargers. But, with tighter suspension and 40 pounds less weight, Bugatti says it’s significantly quicker in lapping a race track.

“The Chiron Sport has become perceptibly more nimble and its new agility, especially in tight corners, makes for a much more emotional experience for the driver on winding roads and handling circuits,” Bugatti president Stephan Winkelmann said in a statement.

Bugatti promises that the Chiron’s gentle on-road character remains largely intact even with the improved cornering ability.

The steering has been slightly modified in this version. The all-wheel-drive Bugatti Sport also has a new torque vectoring program that varies the amount of power sent to each wheel for better turning. In a tight corner, for instance, it might send more power to wheels on the outside of the curve to help push the car through the turn.

The Sport model shaves down its weight by using even more carbon fiber — the Chiron already uses an enormous amount of the lightweight, but very expensive, material. Even the Sport’s windshield wiper arms are made from carbon fiber. The wipers have also been redesigned to do away with the need for an articulated joint, saving weight and making them more aerodynamic.

The starting price is roughly $3.4 million for the Chiron Sport, or $400,000 more than the base Bugatti Chiron. Bugatti is part of the Volkswagen Group (VLKAY).

CNNMoney (Geneva, Switzerland) First published March 6, 2018: 3:41 AM ET