This is an update to an earlier post . As I've noted for some time, housing leads the economy and is the best leading indicator for the economy - both into and out of recessions. Employment lags the economy, and the following graph shows the relationship between starts and unemployment. ... Rea ... Read more

From the NY Times: Euro Zone Officially Out of Recession ... [T]he euro area emerged from recession during the third quarter, helped largely by export growth and improved industrial production in its largest economy, Germany. The European Union’s statistics agency, Eurostat, reported Friday th ... Read more

The Census Bureau reports : The ... total September exports of $132.0 billion and imports of $168.4 billion resulted in a goods and services deficit of $36.5 billion, up from $30.8 billion in August, revised. September exports were $3.7 billion more than August exports of $128.3 billion. September ... Read more

Earlier this week I mentioned a possible " upside surprise " for GDP in 2010: With unemployment above 10%, there will be significant political pressure for another stimulus package - especially if the economy starts to slow in the first half of 2010. This next package could be several hundred bill ... Read more

From Bloomberg: Barofsky Says TARP ‘Almost Certainly’ Will Bring Loss (ht jb)Neil Barofsky ... said the [TARP] will “almost certainly” result in a loss to U.S. taxpayers. ... “Tens of billions of dollars are likely to be lost on the automotive bailout,” Barofsky said. In addition, so ... Read more

From the Association of American Railroads: Rail Time Indicators In October 2009, U.S. freight railroads originated 1,100,714 carloads, an average of 275,179 carloads per week. That’s down 15.3% from October 2008 (when the weekly average was 324,836 carloads) and down 0.3% from September 2009 (w ... Read more

From HotelNewsNow.com: Boston leads RevPAR gains in STR weekly numbers Overall, in year-over-year measurements, the industry’s occupancy fell 3.6 percent to 54.8 percent, average daily rate dropped 8.5 percent US$97.19, and RevPAR decreased 11.8 percent to US$53.29. Click on graph for large ... Read more

The FHA commented on the damage caused by the Downpayment Assistance Programs (DAPs) today. These DAPs circumvented the FHA down payment requirements by having the seller funnel the "down payment" to the buyer through a "charity" (for a small fee of course). The FHA attempted to stop this practice, ... Read more

From David Streitfeld at the NY Times: Housing Agency Says Cash Reserves Are Down Sharply The Federal Housing Administration said Thursday morning that its cash reserves had dwindled significantly in the last year after a record drop in home prices. ... The results of the F.H.A.’s annual audit ... Read more

The MBA reports: Mortgage Refinance Applications Increase, Purchase Applications at Nine Year Low The Market Composite Index, a measure of mortgage loan application volume, increased 3.2 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis from one week earlier. ... The Refinance Index increased 11.3 percent ... Read more