Housing Starts, Building Permits climb in April. UMichigan/Reuters survey falls. | CountingPips Forex & Currency Trading Blog

May 16, 2008 - Forex Economic News

Housing Starts, Building Permits climb in April. UMichigan/Reuters survey falls.

U.S. Housing Starts and Building Permits climbed in the month of April according to data released by the Commerce Department on new residential construction. Housing Starts grew by 8.2 percent in April to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1,032,000, an increase from March's 954,000 estimated housing starts. April's total, despite the monthly increase, is down 30.6 percent compared with April of 2007. Single-family housing starts totaled 692,000 in April which was a 1.7 percent decline from March's 704,000 starts.

Building permits statistics, used as a predictor of future construction, showed a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 978,000 permits in April which is an increase of 4.9 percent compared to March. April's total, despite the monthly increase, is 34.3 percent below the level of April 2007. Single-family permits totaled 646,000 which was a gain of 4.0 percent over March's 621,000 permits.

Housing Completions for April fell compared to March with an annual rate of 1,000,000 privately-owned housing completions. This is a decrease of 16.0 percent compared to March and a 34.9 percent drop compared to April 2007 which saw 1,535,000. Single family housing completions totaled an annual rate of 792,000 in April which was an decrease of 13.0 percent from March.

UMichigan/Reuters Consumer Sentiment Survey drops in May.

The preliminary consumer sentiment survey by the University of Michigan and Reuters fell to its lowest point in almost 28 years in May. The consumer sentiment survey fell to a 59.5 score in May after a score of 62.6 in April in the report released today. The 59.5 survey score is the lowest reading registered by the survey since June of 1980. "Record numbers of consumers viewed the economy in recession and saw little hope of recovery anytime soon," the statement said(Reuters). The low consumer confidence score was well below market forecasts which were expecting the score to register at 62.0 and just slightly below April's final reading. The preliminary report of the survey, released near the beginning of the month, does not include the full total of survey responses and is released in a finalized version later in the month.

Tags: housing starts, building permits, housing completions, consumer confidence, us economy

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