Housing starts, a favored economic indicator of activity, was down for the period. Anything being 'down' sounds bad to the accidental economist, but to the initiated, who learned to put A and B together in the second grade it's not so bad.
The reason this is GOOD news, is because we currently have a 6 month supply of houses on the market that needs to be worked off (sold) before the economy can truly bottom. Adding to existing inventory will both forestall that turnover and further weaken existing prices. So the fact that we added fewer homes is a positive.
Sometimes I forget news is a business, and purposely scaring people seems to be good for the P&L.
