January 20 – Trevor Thompson

From the broker report this morning.
“U.S. stocks were mostly lower on Friday as the market focused on earnings and data reports.

Housing starts fell 9.8% in December from the previous month to 999,000. This was well above the 975,000 starts expected by economists. For the full year, housing starts were up 18.3% from 2012 levels. Building permits were down 3% in December from November levels but were up 17.5% for the year.

Industrial production rose 0.3% in December from the previous month, in line with expectations. Production rose 3.7% for the full year. Capacity utilization edged up 0.1 percentage points to 79.2%. ”

Home building up 17.5% for the year and industrial production up 3.7% for the year. Does that give anyone any reassurance that the US economy is recovering?

By Trevor Thompson. 
CFP DipFP

SENIOR PARTNER