Housing Starts up Nicely but…

Housing Starts (April 2015)

 

– Housing Starts in units, Seasonally Adjusted, annualized  1,135,000
– Permits in units, Seasonally Adjusted, annualized 1,143,000

This is an increase of 20.2% from February.  Single-family Starts were 733,000 a 16.7% increase from the previous month.

This is the best Housing Starts data we have seen in a long time.  It remains to be seen if this is a trend or if the gains for April were fattened by starts deferred from previous months due to the bad winter weather in much of the country.

 
Redbook Chain Store Sales (week ended 5/16/2015)

– Store Sales year/year  +1.8%. previous was  +2.1%.

Consumer Spending is still soft but some of this may be nominal and benefit the consumer if we see retail giants Wal-Mart, Target, Costco, and Amazon engage in price competition to gain market share.  Wal-Mart is facing competition from Target and also planning to invade Amazon’s on-line territory.