Economy/Ecommerce

Housing starts were up in March to an annualized rate of about 1.03 million units, according to the Census Bureau.

As the U.S. residential market improved throughout 2012, homebuilders grew more optimistic month by month, but now the trend has gone in reverse.

Consumers pulled back their spending in March, according to the Census Bureau, with total U.S. retail sales down 0.4 percent month-over-month.

The Federal Reserve reported that total consumer credit was up at an annualized rate of 7.8 percent in February, compared with a 5.5 percent increase in January.

The Federal Reserve released the minutes of the Federal Open Market Committee meeting, and while it didn’t reveal any dramatic fractiousness within the Central Bank, it seems that some members of the committee brought up phasing out QE3 sooner rather than at no specific point in time.

According to the JOLTS report the number of U.S. job openings at the end of February was 3.9 million, up from 3.6 million January.

Consumers might still be a little leery about the broader economic recovery, but at least they’re fairly confident in the housing recovery.

March’s jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics was a disappointment for a number of reasons, beyond mere lackluster U.S. job growth for the month itself.