Labor/Economy

The Reuters/University of Michigan’s consumer sentiment index saw an uptick in late October, ending the month at 60.9. That compares to 57.5 in mid-October and September and August levels that were even lower.

Euro-zone nabobs reached a (tentative) deal on Thursday to keep the euro zone from imploding (for now).

Euro-zone panjandrums met over the weekend in Brussels for the 13th “crisis-management summit” in less than two years, and perhaps made progress on the vexing problems of national debt in Greece and elsewhere.

Existing homes sales saw a 3 percent slide in September to an annualized rate of 4.91 million units, according to the National Association of Realtors.

Home starts experienced an unexpected uptick in September, increasing 15 percent to an annualized rate of 658,000 units.

It’s probably a case of “nowhere to go but up,” but even so it counts as good news that homebuilder confidence rose four points to 18 on the National Association of Home Builders/Wells Fargo Housing Market Index for October.

Germany and France are still at odds about the best way to recapitalize banks who once thought that Greek and Irish and Portuguese and even Italian debt would be a good investment.