10/20/09

Good morning. Today we had Housing Starts and Building Permits. New construction of U.S. homes, however rose by less than expected in September: Housing Starts were up only.5% (Friday we have the September Existing Home Sales data, expected to show a small improvement.). We also had the Producer Price Index, expected to be flat but instead dropping .6% in September, mainly because of a 2.4 percent decline in energy prices. For the year the PPI is down 4.8%. What inflation? After the numbers mortgage rates are slightly better this morning.