Summary for Week Ending Oct 19th

From calculatedriskblog.com

The US economic data clearly improved last week. This was the third week in a row with mostly better than expected data, and suggests some recent pickup in economic activity. The week started off with a strong retail sales report for September. Although some of the increase in sales was related to higher gasoline prices, sales excluding gasoline picked up too. And once again the housing reports showed significant improvement. Housing starts were up sharply (as were permits), and residential investment is now a fairly strong tailwind for the economy (I expect this to continue in 2013 and beyond). On Friday, existing ... (full story)