US Housing Starts Rise to Six Year High in November

December 18, 2013 Share Print 0

U.S. housing starts surged to their highest level in nearly six years in November, a sign of strength in the housing market that could give the Federal Reserve ammunition to start cutting back its bond purchases.

The Commerce Department said on Wednesday housing starts jumped 22.7 percent, the biggest increase since January 1990, to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 1.09 million units.

That was the highest level since February 2008 and only the second time since the collapse of the housing market in 2006 that starts rose above a 1 million-unit pace.

The department also said groundbreaking increased 1.8 percent in October and slipped 1.1 percent in September. The release of housing starts data for September and October was delayed because of a 16-day shutdown of the federal government in October.

Economists polled by Reuters had expected starts to come in at a 950,000-unit rate in November and set a 915,000-unit pace in October.

via Reuters

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Alfonso Esparza

Senior Currency Analyst at Market Pulse

Alfonso Esparza specializes in macro forex strategies for North American and major currency pairs. Upon joining OANDA in 2007, Alfonso Esparza established the MarketPulseFX blog and he has since written extensively about central banks and global economic and political trends. Alfonso has also worked as a professional currency trader focused on North America and emerging markets. He has been published by The MarketWatch, Reuters, the Wall Street Journal and The Globe and Mail, and he also appears regularly as a guest commentator on networks including Bloomberg and BNN. He holds a finance degree from the Monterrey Institute of Technology and Higher Education (ITESM) and an MBA with a specialization on financial engineering and marketing from the University of Toronto.