U.S. Stocks Mostly Lower as Housing Data Signal Growth Slowdown as investors digested new economic data pointing to a decline in home construction last month. Jeffrey Roach, chief economist at LPL Financial, said the decrease in housing starts points to a decay in pace of growth and speaks of a change in market sentiment.
However, the Department of Housing and Urban Development and the Census Bureau both showed a huge 14.7% decline in building new homes in March, with building permits falling by 4.3%. Roach was emphatic that, after a very long run of scorching-hot activity in homebuilding, we're now finally beginning to see some signs of cooling off. This could eventually affect future economic growth.
He further mentioned that residential investment is set to weigh against U.S. GDP in the quarters ahead. He went to point out that the stability of housing activity might involve the Federal Reserve through adjustments in rates, stating that the monetary policy played a very important role in affecting the trajectory of the housing market.
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