Housing Starts Continue Uncertain Path.

Housing Starts (May 2015)

– Starts seasonally adjusted, annualized  1,036,000. Previous revised to 1,165,000
– Permits seasonally adjusted, annualized  1,275,000. Previous revised to 1,140,000.

Housing Starts should be 1,500,000 to accommodate expanding population and homes scrapped or destroyed. Starts had solid gains in March and April and we will need to see if May was an aberration.

Redbook Chain Store Sales (week ended 6/13/2015)

– Store Sales year/year +1.1%. Previous was +1.2%

An FOMC Meeting begins today.  With economic fundamentals being mediocre especially with 1stQ2015 GDP showing contraction and the EU pleading for no hike from the Fed the chance of a rate hike now is very small.  The Fed is would serve everyone better by not giving a prognosis as to when rate hikes will start. The Fed’s actions must be based on the data including what is happening with the US$/Euro exchange rate.