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The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) kept monetary policy unchanged at their meeting this week as expected, with the fed funds target rate in a range of 0.0% to 0.25%. The Fed also continues to purchase $80 billion of Treasuries per month, and $40 billion of agency mortgage-backed securities per month. The decision among voting […]

Housing market momentum remained solid heading into 2021. Total housing starts increased 5.8% in December to an annual pace of 1,669,000 (the strongest rate since 2006). Single family starts jumped 12.0% to an annualized rate of 1,338,000, while multi-family starts declined 13.6% to an annualized rate of 331,000. On a year-over-year basis, total housing starts […]

Retail sales momentum slowed during the holiday shopping season. On a year-over-year basis, retail sales were up 2.9% in December versus 3.7% in November. On a month-over-month basis, retail sales declined 0.7% in December, following a 1.4% decline in November. The month-over-month declines were broad-based in December on a seasonally adjusted basis, with outsized declines […]